We need a new desk. And by “we” I mean Angela and I need to get a desk we can both use. I know it goes against all things GTD , but for the sake of space, we need to consolidate.

For many years now I’ve had my own room where I do stuff like work, read, play guitar, record, etc… Well, now that we have 2 kids, I need to give up my “Man Cave” so that each of our kids can have their own room. We have a boy, “Carnage”, and a girl, “Mayhem”. We haven’t decided which will move in there. But, I first need to move out and I have a lot of stuff! We’ve figured out where the books and other things can be moved (except for the 7 guitars), but I can’t keep my desk. The desk I have is more of a studio recording desk. It has racks where guitar/recording gear can be placed. Another reason that I have to sell it is that it won’t fit anywhere else in the house! It’s big!

Both of us use laptops now so there is no need to have room for a desktop computer. We need an area to house the printer, writing instruments, an “IN” basket for processing, possibly some reference material and other office supplies. What we would also like is a desk that can “disappear” when not in use. I saw one at IKEA several months back that closes up to look like a corner cabinet.

Something like this desk “armoire” (above) would be nice since the only place we have room for a desk is the dining room. If it closes up to look like a cabinet it won’t look like we have a desk in the dining room. The fact that it has shelves in there is a plus since those can hold some of the items mentioned above. Of course, the doors look like they’d be a little in the way. It would be nice if the doors slid into the cabinet after you opened them like some TV cabinets do.

Something like this black cabinet and hutch (below) would go nicely on the other side.The doors open to be flush with the sides. I like all the storage that this provides. The printer can fit underneath. There’s plenty of room for both of our laptops. There’s even a file drawer at the bottom to fit my 43 folders! The problem is that the “writing area” would have to be the keyboard drawer. You can’t push a chair into this desk. I’m a little heavy-handed, so that thing would probably not last.

The drop lid workstation below is very nice, except for the $1000 price tag. If we went with something like this, the dining room table would have to be moved when the lid was open. I do like all the storage though and the computers could be hidden away nicely.

We’re  open to any suggestions. We have a big dining room table ( 60″ x 60″ ) and I guess that could be used as a writing area. We then would just need some sort of “office supply holding area” where our pens, pencils, inks, notebooks, and other paraphernalia could live. Also, the laptops have to sit and charge somewhere away from Mayhem and Carnage.

Do you have a writing/laptop desk that you love and think would work for us? Please let us know what direction you think we should go or where we could look for a desk. Thanks for your help guys!