Office & study furniture

Choosing office furniture

Office furniture is usually sold on a photograph of an empty desktop, but the measurements that decide whether you can work at a desk all day are underneath it: the height of the top, the clear space for your knees front-to-back, and whether a drawer pedestal leaves room for a chair with arms. Those three figures appear on every desk listing here.

Desk height and chair height have to be considered together. A desk top around 75 cm suits a chair with a seat height of roughly 42–48 cm for most adults. If you already own a chair, measure its seat height before choosing a desk — a mismatch of even 5 cm is the difference between a comfortable day and a sore shoulder, and it is far easier to fix at the point of ordering than afterwards.

For a home office, also think about where the cables will go before you choose. A desk positioned away from a wall needs a route for power and network cable that does not run across a walkway. Listings note where a top has a cable grommet or a rear tray.

Shelving and filing units list their internal dimensions, which is the figure to check against the file boxes or ring binders you actually use.