Built in desks

What a built in desk includes

A built in desk is a worktop fixed to your wall, with the storage made around it: drawers, a file drawer, adjustable shelves above. The top's set to your seated height and the depth your screen needs.

Home office built ins run from one desk bay to the whole wall, with a lateral file and a hutch over the top. Taking the same door finish as the rest of your house makes it read as part of the room, rather than as an office that arrived in it.

• Desk height set to how you actually sit
• Outlets and cables built in, not trailing
• Reads as part of the room, not just an office

Desk depth and what's behind you on calls

Depth isn't a storage decision here, it's an eyesight one. Around 24 inches suits a laptop. Dual monitors want nearer 30. Past that you're eating the 36 to 42 inches of clear floor your chair needs to push back.

Then there's what's behind you on a video call. The band of shelving at head height is in every frame. That's the run that decides between doors and open shelves, and where your task light points. You're also the one person sitting in the swing path of the doors. A base door hinged toward your chair means rolling back to open it. So drawers win under a desk, and hinge side gets picked with your chair in place.

How a built in desk gets measured and fitted

It starts from two numbers, your seated elbow height and your eye height in the chair you'll use, not from how tall you are. Those go onto a drawing with the wall, the outlets and where your screen sits. That drawing gets signed off before anything's ordered or cut. Any new outlets or data drops get roughed in before the back panels close. Then it gets made, delivered and fitted, with the top scribed to the wall and the ends finished.

What to settle before your desk is ordered

Your printer and your router run warm all day. Decide which equipment gets a solid door, and give that cabinet a vent and a rear grommet. Pick letter or legal for your file drawer now, legal folders are three inches wider and the drawer gets sized to them, and say whether it locks. If you want a pencil drawer under the top, it takes two or three inches out of your knee space, so check your thighs clear it at the height you sit.

Fixed desk height, or a sit-stand bay

A built in desk is one height for the life of the cabinetry, the only retrofit is a converter perched on the finished top. So the choice is a fixed seated height, or an open bay with no drawers and no legs under it. Size that bay so a freestanding sit-stand base slides in and the top around it stays put, with the floor under it clear, no toe kick. Put the base you'd actually buy on the drawing, its footprint is what sets the bay.

Desk, TV unit or bedroom built-ins

If you'll sit at it, it's a desk and this is your page, a closet office included. If it's shelving around a screen and nowhere to sit, that's a TV unit. A closet fitted with hanging and shelves and no worktop is bedroom built-ins. And in an older Hillsborough house the wall you want your desk on often has one outlet, so count what you'll plug in before the drawing's done, not after.