Whether for a home office or professional work environment, the desk is one of the fundamental furniture pieces.
Beyond reasons of the aesthetic alone, it will also significantly contribute to levels of productivity and longterm health.
Making the wrong choice can lead to longterm negative consequences, some of which we will cover during this article.
Most of us enjoy being able to take pride in our work spaces, we spend so much time there it would be crazy not to.
While a comfortable office chair maybe the main priority, the choice of desk is of equal importance: do you go with a corner model, lots of drawers and cupboards, and which material would be ideal? With oak wood (particularly the solid oak timbers) your desk is going to look fantastic and provide an ideal working environment for many years to come.
It can be tempting to go for a cheaper imitation wooden model, but the results are going to be disappointing, both in terms of appearance and performance.
With any furniture purchase, durability should be one of the major factors determining your final choice, and what better way to achieve this than with a reliable solid wood frame.
Not only should the desk itself be stable and durable, but the drawers also.
A way to achieve this is through dovetail joinery which is the method of choice when the desk has been assembled by hand as is the case with solid oak office desks.
This construction feature prevents the drawers from buckling and collapsing, enabling the drawer contents to roll out onto the floor.
Any practical office desk should also enable you to organise stationary and files while keeping them close to hand.
At the same time, with almost all office roles now incorporating the use of a computer, compatible integration with a PC is less of a nice extra and more of an essential feature.
Both requirements are fulfilled in a similar manner: open shelving, closed cupboard areas and slide out keyboard trays.
It may sound obvious, but quite a common mistake to make is to not factor in the available chair space that the desk provides.
When taking this into account, bear in mind not just the size of the chair, but the space required to enable various movements such as rotation or any tilt that your chair may provide.
The office chair and desk should work in tandem to facilitate your working in an ergonomically healthy position.
This is more the responsibility of the chair - which should offer the ability to adjust the height and lumbar positioning - but the desk needs to have enough space for you to be able to work comfortably and position a keyboard in a position optimum to your body shape.
Failure to achieve optimum position can lead to longterm health problems such as RSA and those of poor posture.
In smaller office spaces such as those typically found in the home, an oak corner desk can be a handy way to make the most of the available space.
When combined with complementing furniture pieces such as filing cabinets or additional desks this approach also enables the workspace to occupy the entire room perimeter.
A corner desk is also useful for those power users operating a multi-monitor setup, such as those in the design industry for example.