something for everyone

32 Desks, Vetted 32 Ways

Photo: Hayneedle

Here at the Strategist, we know that finding the “best” product really depends on exactly who you ask — which is why we’ve devoted a new series to squeezing in as many informed, trustworthy opinions as possible. And we’ve come up with dozens of ways to do this, among them: surfacing reader reviews from across the internet, taking quick polls (among our most insane friends and fellow shopping-obsessed Strategist editors), and partaking in some advanced internet snooping.

With that, we’re rounding up the best desks, according to the everyday people and experts. Our recommendations range from a folding table that allows one editorial director to work from their couch to a treadmill desk that will help you meet your step goals — all at different price points, from $44 to over $1,000 if you feel like splurging.

Ask a Cool Person: Best console that doubles as a desk

While a traditional desk may not fit a small city space, a narrow console table is an easier fit, according to interior designer Pramiti Bhargava of BlueGrape Staging. If you live in a one-bedroom apartment, you will need to get more creative. “Replace a nightstand in the bedroom with a small console,” said Bhargava, who likes this two-shelf console from Article. Keep the top clear and a stool nearby and it easily turns into a desk.

Snooping: Kiss the DeeJay’s Closet Desk

JaKissa Taylor-Semple, known as DJ Kiss, posted a desk set up few years back that was so enviable, we still think about it. The glass top gave us a clear view of her fabulous shoe collection — rows and rows of beautiful heels — in the background. While that shoe wall might be harder to replicate, we found this glass top writing desk with chrome legs that’s a pretty spot-on dupe for hers for less than $300.

Editor’s Choice: A Lap Desk for Working Outside

New York Magazine’s senior art director and visuals manager, Stevie Remsberg, stocked a workstation on wheels to work from wherever (like the park on nice days). Her set up includes this lap desk from Ikea. “The laptop gets hot, so you can’t put it right on your lap,” Remsberg explains. “I needed something to sort of prop it up, and it just seemed crazy to bring a whole table. It made more sense to have my laptop on my lap. This thing works great. It has a beanbag cushion on the bottom, so it’s comfortable, too.”

Photo: Courtesy of Blair Donovan

Ask a Cool Person: A dupe for Apartment Therapy’s style shopping editor’s vintage desk

Blair Donovan, a style shopping editor at Apartment Therapy, has a vintage writing desk that she loves. “The desk has been in my family for a few generations, so I’m obviously attached to it for the sentiment, but I love it most for the vintage, old-school style,” she says. “They don’t make legs like this anymore.” Finding something even close to Donovan’s desk would require a lot of brick-and-mortar vintage shopping. But you can get the look with a new, but traditional-style desk like this one from Wayfair. You won’t get the clawed feet , but this desk has the same single-drawer design and similar curved legs. “The rest of my furniture’s pretty modern, and this contrast strikes a nice balance in my bedroom,” says Donovan. “Because it’s so simple and classic, too, I’ve been having a lot of fun playing around with different desk accessories.”

Strategist Pick: An L-shaped desk for under $100

When searching for affordable desks on Amazon, we found this gem: an L-shaped desk for well under $100. As you can see from the other L-shaped desk on the list, they can easily cost over $1,000, so this one, with plenty of space for storage underneath, and surface area sufficient for two monitors, is a steal.

Ask a Cool Person: The fold up desk M.A.C’s editorial director uses

If you’re really tight on space, you might need a desk that can completely disappear at the end of the work day. Khalea Underwood, the global editorial manager for M.A.C Cosmetics, who typically works from her couch recommends this folding table. It’s a suitable height, as compared to a coffee table and works as a “desk, table, and workstation,” she says, and can easily be tucked away at the end of the day.

Expert-Approved: A chiropractor’s pick for a treadmill desk

From $2,149

If getting your steps in during the work day is important, consider a treadmill desk. “Too often we work too many hours in a day and not enough hours exercising and moving,” says chiropractor Daniel Huang of Level Up Sports Chiropractic. “A sedentary lifestyle increases your risk of cardiovascular disease, joint pain and other systemic issues that can be prevented if we just simply move.” With something like the Lifespan treadmill, you can create an “active workstation” and get the recommended 10,000 steps a day while getting your work done. You can build a desk customized to your expected activity level and choose desk widths between 38-, 48-, and 60-inches.

Ask a Cool Person: Photographer Raquel Hendriksen’s Desk

“I am a very minimalist person,” photographer Raquel Hendriksen says. “So having a clean and uncluttered space is relevant to my overall sanity. I do not like cords.” A clunky desk would just add to chaos, so she was happy to find this simple, all-wood desk from Dims. It has nice clean lines, and is wide enough to spread out any essentials so it doesn’t interfere with her minimalist aesthetic. She has it in the natural ash pictured, but it’s also available in ink black.

Snooping: Interior designer Justina Blakeney’s desh-slash-bar

When Blakely remodeled her Los Angeles home, she installed a mid-century modern secretary desk with two drop-down shelves that create “the perfect small-space desk and bar.” Though there’s no exact replica for Blakely’s vintage piece, AllModern’s multipurpose white floating desk has two drop-down shelves and a modern look.

Ask a Cool Person: Reporter and podcast host Sylvia Obell’s writing desk

Obell told us the design of this desk suits her minimalist style, and the white marble desktop serves as a canvas for her to add “pops of color from desk accents like a stack of books, a cute tray shaped as red lips.” She likes that because the drawers are open-facing, they “force me to keep them tidy.” Obell also tells us it was “easy to assemble, which I appreciate as a single woman. All I had to do was screw on the legs.”

Snooping: Philip Roth’s lectern

The novelist had two light-wood lecterns, which he used as standing desks — one in his Upper West Side work studio, the other in his home in Connecticut. He stood while he wrote instead of sitting because he had a bad back and was said to have walked half a mile for every page he wrote. While Roth’s were custom-made, these from Classroom Essentials Online will create a similar-looking setup.

Ask a Cool Person: Painter Marcus Brutus’s Ikea low “desk”

The artist tells us that in place of a desk, he prefers to use this coffee table from Ikea to work on “smaller drawings.” Brutus says he leans over it from his couch and that it “isn’t so low that it strains my back.”

Snooping: Bob Boilen’s “Tiny Desk Concert” desk

Desks aren’t generally featured in concerts, except Bob Boilen’s, which is used in NPR’s “Tiny Desk Concert” videos. His L-shaped eight-by-six-foot desk sits in the network’s D.C. office and comes from Herman Miller’s Canvas Office line. Since those are only available in bulk, get this L-shaped six-by-six-foot desk from Bush Business Furniture, which comes with a wide top and looks quite similar.

Expert-Approved: Best desk for kids according to child psychologists

Dr. Donna Housman says having a flip-top desk will help ensure children store their belongings properly, as it gives them “a special place that belongs just to them.” We particularly like this handsome-yet-unobtrusive wooden option.

Expert-Approved: Best desk for teachers according to a teacher

For New York City–based special-education music teacher Connay Bratton, having a desk with wheels enables her to “easily transition the classroom into a better setup for my students,” who do a lot of “hands-on project-based learning in groups.”

[Editor’s Note: Bratton’s exact model is sold out, but this Alera desk is nearly identical.]

Snooping: Alex Katz’s studio desk

A 2018 New Yorker profile of the 93-year-old artist includes a picture of one of the offices in his West Broadway studio. Underneath piles of photographs of his family is his desk, made out of two industrial gray metal filing cabinets (covered in Post-it notes) and a slab of glass. Similar cabinets are available at Staples; the glass can be procured at Home Depot.

Snooping: Best small desk used by a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist

Just as most people reached the one-month mark of working from home during the coronavirus pandemic, Ashley Parker, a Pulitzer Prize–winning White House reporter for the Washington Post, took to Twitter looking for an in-stock desk. “I am losing my mind and don’t know how much longer I can work from my ‘left side of the bed’ home office,” she wrote. Parker had her eyes on this Safavieh desk, but it was sold out at the time. Not only is it back in stock, it’s on sale.

Expert-Approved: Best small desk recommended by an interior designer

This mango-wood desk from West Elm is a classic. It’s just two inches wider than the above, but has a more modern look with no drawer pulls and metal legs. “Petite dimensions and a pleasing wood finish combined with ‘go with anything’ black metal accents make this one a great choice for a variety of more laid back décors,” says interior designer Christopher Stevens, founder of Tipper Studio. If space isn’t an issue, Stevens points out this desk comes in a few other sizes that might better suit your space.

Expert-Approved: Best standing desk according to chiropractors

If you prefer function over form when it comes to standing desks, both chiropractor Jan Lefkowitz and integrative pain expert Joe Tatta vouch for the Varidesk, because it can switch between standing and sitting height. Tatta explains that “substituting prolonged standing for prolonged sitting results in a greater feeling of discomfort,” so he likes that this three-plane desk “accommodates a variety of body types and postures.”

[Editor’s Note: This is currently sold out, but you can join the waitlist.]

Strategist Pick: Best Donald Judd–esque desk

When we realized that a small group of stylish people were building their own Donald Judd–inspired furniture, we also learned that there’s some Judd-esque pieces for sale at Urban Outfitters (of all places) — like this mid-century foldout desk, that does double as a storage space. The modular, minimal, wooden look is certainly Judd-ish, with some modern touches like a cord hole in the back and some hidden storage compartments. The desk is on pr-order right now until November 11, but if you can’t wait that long for a Judd-esque workspace, consider this pale wood table.

Ask a Cool Person: Chris Black’s favorite desk

When he’s not working from bed, our resident taste-based expert Chris Black uses a simple, untreated wood desk that his friend built for him. However, if he were to buy something, Black recommends this (also extremely Judd-ish) desk from Steelcase, calling it “clean, simple, and well priced. You can fit storage underneath which is a bonus,” he adds. Like anyone with a penchant for the modular and minimal, Black suggests the winter on maple or white-toned option.

Curbed Editors’ Choice: Best space-saving desk

According to writers and editors at Curbed, another desk solution for small spaces is this wall-mounted Elfa pick, which includes three shelves. “Transform a small nook from wasted space to functional desk with this set that uses only one piece of track mounted to the wall,” explain the writers. Plus, on the Container Store’s website, the desk gets dozens of five-star reviews (with none under four stars), including one Manhattan-based customer who calls the purchase their “best decision ever,” adding that they can now study in their studio apartment instead of going to a cafe with enough space.

People’s Choice: Best-rated desk according to Amazon reviews

Real-estate developers and mechanical engineers praise the minimalist look and sturdy construction of this Zinus Soho desk, which is the best-rated home-office desk and writing desk on Amazon. The rectangular desk is two feet deep and ranges from 47 to 63 inches long, providing what one reviewer describes as a “huge work space so I can spread everything out, and my desk-chair arms fit underneath without getting stuck so I can roll around freely.” The under-$200, flat-pack desk is from Zinus’s readily available Modern Studio Collection, which also includes these well-reviewed bed frames and mattresses that have been tested (and approved) by Strategist writers and comedians, so we expect it’ll last.

Quick Pick: Best desk after a Strategist writer’s hour of research

Writer Kayla Levy had been a fan of this Reader Desk from local design company Akron Street for a while (she’d been seeing it on her Instagram for months), but its $595 price tag was a tad too high. She wasn’t the only one: Enough other people have their eye on the Reader (Strategist writer Lauren Ro, included) that it’s back-ordered until the fall of 2020. So she tried to find an in-stock dupe: “Direct-to-consumer furniture brand Inside Weather makes an extremely similar-looking, now on sale desk called the Jorn, which comes complete with an open drawer and back ledge,” she says. “When it’s not on sale, though, it’s more expensive than the Reader itself. Blu Dot’s modern-looking Stash Desk is a close second, but it might take a couple of weeks to ship.”

People’s Choice: Best-rated desk according to Houzz reviewers

Most of the wares on interior-design aggregator Houzz only have a couple of reviews, which is why this computer desk from Monarch Specialties is such a standout — with nearly 100 four- and five-star reviews that praise its storage and open design. One independent business owner describes herself as “happy as a pig in mud,” thanks to the desk’s “highly functional storage space” for all of her papers. And if that’s not convincing enough, the computer desk is sold across several online sites, and it has excellent reviews on all of them. At Amazon, one customer says it’s a “super sturdy” desk with “so much top desk space.” It’s also available in a variety of finishes at Macy’s, K-Mart, and Overstock.com.

The Verge Editors’ Choice: Best standing desk

With over 2,000 reviews and an average rating of 4.8 out of 5 stars on Fully, a direct-to-consumer furniture company, thousands of customers appreciate this sustainably built, customizable standing desk for its sleek look and expert-approved ergonomic setup. “It is beautiful, extremely sturdy, and easy to move up and down,” says one grad student, who found the desk to be better for her back pain than biweekly visits to the chiropractor. Plus, four staffers at the Verge recommend the desk for working from home, including Nick Statt, who calls the Jarvis “far and away my best work-from-home purchase in years.” At just under $600, Statt adds that the desk is “rather pricey by desk standards, but cheap by standing desk standards,” especially for one that “looks great.”

Strategist Readers’ Choice: Best (less expensive) standing desk

According to our data, this well-reviewed standing desk is the most-purchased desk by Strategist readers over the last 30 days. Similar to the Jarvis, it has a sleek wood-and-white design and an electric lift system, which one five-star Amazon reviewer says rises and lifts quickly and according to your height. “Never knew I needed an electric height adjustable desk until I got this one,” they add.

Ask a Cool Person: The favorite desk of a CEO (with good taste)

$499

When we explored the workspaces of creative and productive people, Emma Mcilroy, the CEO of Portland-based feminist clothing line Wildfang, says she gets the most work done at her West Elm Jensen Desk. “It’s kind of mid-century-inspired because I’m really into that era,” she says of the desk, which has a wooden A-frame base and sleek glass surface.

People’s Choice: Best-rated corner desk at Wayfair, according to reviewers

“For anyone (everyone?) trying to shoehorn a work-from-home situation into an already-full home, a corner desk will work wonders,” says lifestyle journalist and author of The Little Book of Living Small, Laura Fenton. This triangular Andover Mills desk has over 1,500 five-star reviewers on Wayfair, who vouch for its small but functional storage spaces. “The desktop is spacious enough to accommodate my two full-size computer monitors,” says one reviewer, and another adds, “I love the little shelves underneath to tuck away our small printer and books.”

Snooping: Vogue fashion director Virginia Smith’s desk

After combing through a recent Vogue article about five editors’ at-home desk setups, we learned that fashion director Virginia Smith lives “in fear of technology issues” while working from home, and this acacia-toned desk has enough surface space to fit her laptop, iPad, two phones, and some drawers for other tchotchkes — like Jao Refresher hand sanitizer. Although it’s on the pricier side — and is currently backordered until November — the Drommen Desk is a CB2 exclusive from German designer Jannis Ellenberger, whose work usually retails for much more.

According to Reddit: Best gaming desk

Ikea desks are popular among gamers on Reddit: In the 2.2 million-member subreddit r/buildapc, a top discussion about the best gaming desks surfaces the word “Ikea” over 200 times. One member disputes the notion that Ikea desks aren’t built to last, writing that they’ve been using the desk since 2015 and that it’s “solid” and “will last for some time.” Another member says their Fredde “has lasted five years and is still going strong,” adding that it’s “great for gaming.” When compared to Ikea’s iconic gaming desk, the Jerker, the Fredde is described as “wider,” “shallower,” and “lighter,” with “appealing features” like additional shelving for monitors and subwoofers. One pleased gamer notes that the Fredde also has “cupholders, a top shelf for a printer, and disassembles easily if you are moving.”

Strategist Pick: Our home-design writer’s favorite lap desk

When Strategist writer (and our resident home-design expert) Lauren Ro isn’t writing at her vintage desk, she works from bed or the couch with this lap desk. “I wanted something that was sturdy and also looked nice, so I opted for this bamboo one with cutouts that help keep your laptop cool,” she says, adding “it also has a ton of neat features, like adjustable legs and a tabletop that can be tilted to a range of angles.” Much like Liz Carey’s lap desk (turned Fruit Loops-in-bed tray), Ro imagines that her bamboo desk would double as a great breakfast-in-bed tray. Strategist writer Tembe Denton Hurst also stands by her slightly less-expensive laptop tray, which has a convenient mini shelf and is big enough for a 17-inch laptop.

[Editor’s Note: Ro’s pick is sold out, but this one is extremely similar.]

Additional reporting by Louis Cheslaw, Karen Iorio Adelson, and Daniel Varghese.

*A version of this article appears in the August 17, 2020, issue of New York Magazine. Subscribe Now!

The Strategist is designed to surface the most useful, expert recommendations for things to buy across the vast e-commerce landscape. Some of our latest conquests include the best acne treatments, rolling luggage, pillows for side sleepers, natural anxiety remedies, and bath towels. We update links when possible, but note that deals can expire and all prices are subject to change.

32 Desks, Vetted 32 Ways