Small-Space Home Offices

Tucked into the corner of a tiny extra room, this home office wins major storage points with its typesetter's-case-turned-hold-everything-unit and narrow red shelf built into the wall.

Designer Kyle Schuneman sits in his masculine and industrial home office, filled with vintage finds like an old metal desk he scored on Craigslist and a showstopping sunburst mirror.

Save your eyes from pattern overload by combining a large-scale pattern with medium-and small-scale ones for balanced visual effect. As this guest room/office—a converted garage space—shows, variety keeps each pattern distinct without competing.

Don't have enough space for a prefab office desk? Build a work station into an otherwise awkwardly spaced nook using lumber in the size, stain and style of your choosing. Add a ceiling track to hold a sliding curtain when you want to hide away your work for the day.

Incorporate a work space anywhere you have the wall space for a narrow table. Here, a hallway becomes the place to check email, jot a note, or do other administrative office-type tasks.

A room the size of a walk-in closet with awkward angles serves can serve as an office that's anything but all work and no play. Large prints can make a room look bigger, so let lively green wallpaper climb the walls and ceiling. Rather than fight the roofline angle, border them with green grosgrain ribbon, which also hides the paper's seams. Rounding out the irregular room is a vintage chair paired with a newer desk of mid-century design. The vintage elephant stool fits the quirky space perfectly.

Tuck a desk into the room you're likely to use it most in, and call that the home office. Here, an otherwise unused kitchen nook finds new life as a super-functional computing station.

A diminutive unfinished wood desk perched in the corner of this guest room makes a complete workspace.

A sneaky secretary's desk can be placed in any room of the house, guaranteeing that you'll always have the space to work. (We love how the drawers on this unit can keep office supplies at hand, as well.)

Only have a narrow guest room to contain your home office? Opt for streamlined furniture that can be pushed against the wall and reconfigured as needed, such a the swing-arm desk and trundle bed seen here.