How to Create a Scandi Home Office
The home office has become one of the most important rooms in the house. Whether it's a dedicated room, a corner of the living room, or a spare bedroom pressed into service, the space in which we work from home has a direct and measurable impact on how well we work — and how clearly we can separate work from the rest of life when the day is done.
Scandinavian design is particularly well suited to the home office. Its emphasis on function, clarity, and the absence of unnecessary distraction creates environments that support concentration and creative thinking. A well-designed Scandi workspace is one that makes it easy to focus, comfortable to spend long hours in, and genuinely pleasant to be in — not in spite of good design, but because of it.
Start with the Right Desk
The desk is the foundation of the home office and deserves to be chosen with real care. You will spend more time at it than at almost any other piece of furniture in the house, and the quality of that experience — the height, the surface, the material — matters more than most people realise until they get it wrong.
A height-adjustable desk is one of the most worthwhile investments in a home office. The ability to move between sitting and standing across the working day reduces fatigue, improves posture, and makes a genuine difference to energy levels and concentration over time. Both Montana and String Furniture produce height-adjustable desks that bring the same design quality and material honesty to the workspace as their storage systems do to the rest of the home — clean-lined, well-proportioned, and built to last.
For surface material, solid timber — oak especially — is the natural Scandi choice. Warm, tactile, and beautiful to work on, it brings the same quality to the desk as it does to any other piece of furniture in the home. Keep the surface as clear as possible; a desk that is buried under paper and equipment is one that makes focused work harder, not easier.
Choose Your Chair with Care
The office chair is the piece of furniture that has the greatest impact on physical wellbeing in a home office, and it is the one most commonly compromised on. A chair that doesn't support the body properly will cause discomfort within hours and cumulative problems over months and years. It is worth spending properly.
Vitra produce some of the finest office seating available — pieces that bring the same design rigour and quality of manufacture to the workspace as the best furniture brings to the rest of the home. The Vitra Pacific Chair, designed by Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby, is a beautifully resolved piece of ergonomic seating — adjustable, supportive, and considered in its design in a way that makes it feel entirely at home in a Scandi interior. The Vitra ID Chair offers a similarly high level of ergonomic support with a quieter, more understated presence.
A good office chair is not a compromise between comfort and aesthetics. The best ones — and Vitra produce several — are genuinely both.
Get the Storage Right
A home office only functions well if the storage works. Without it, the desk accumulates the clutter that belongs elsewhere, concentration suffers, and the end of the working day brings a low-level sense of disorder that is difficult to leave behind.
Montana's Cargo units are particularly well suited to the home office — deep, robust, and designed to handle the practical reality of files, equipment, and the accumulated material of a working life. Configured as a sideboard-height run of units alongside the desk, or built upward as a full wall of storage, they bring the same precision of finish and breadth of colour choice to the workspace as Montana's other systems do elsewhere in the home. The ability to mix open and closed modules means that what needs to be accessible is within reach, and what doesn't need to be seen is out of sight.
HAY's New Order shelving system offers a more open, lighter approach to workspace storage. Its modular steel frame and interchangeable components — shelves, drawers, doors, and hanging rails — make it endlessly configurable and easy to adapt as needs change. It has a quiet industrial character that sits naturally in a home office context, and the wide range of finishes means it works with almost any interior palette.
String Furniture's wall-mounted shelving is the most space-efficient option of the three — keeping the floor clear while providing generous storage for books, files, and the objects that accumulate on the periphery of a working life. In a smaller home office or a dedicated corner of another room, String's ability to work vertically without taking up floor space is particularly valuable.
Get the Lighting Right
Lighting in a home office needs to work harder than in almost any other room — providing sufficient task light for focused work while avoiding the harshness and glare that cause eye strain over long periods.
Natural light is the starting point. Position the desk to make the most of available daylight, ideally with the light source to the side rather than directly in front of or behind the screen. Keep the window unobstructed and the sill clear.
For artificial light, layer as you would in any other room. A good desk lamp — positioned to illuminate the work surface without creating screen glare — is essential. Louis Poulsen's desk lamps are designed around the same principle as all their work: eliminating glare while directing warm, even light precisely where it's needed. A floor lamp in the corner of the room adds ambient warmth that makes the space feel less clinical and more like a room you want to spend time in.
Avoid cool-white overhead lighting as the sole light source — it's functional but tiring over a long day. Warm-toned bulbs and a layered approach make a significant difference to how the room feels and how long you can work in it comfortably.
Define the Space
One of the challenges of the home office — particularly one that shares space with another room — is creating a psychological boundary between work and the rest of life. In a Scandi interior, this is done through considered design rather than physical partition.
A distinct rug under the desk defines the workspace visually. A shelving system that acts as a room divider — a String or HAY New Order unit positioned perpendicular to the wall — creates a sense of separation without closing the space down. A consistent palette that is slightly cooler or more focused than the rest of the room signals a different mode of being.
When the working day ends, close the laptop, clear the desk, and if the office shares space with a living area, draw a curtain or reposition a screen. The physical act of closing down the workspace makes it easier to leave work behind — something a well-designed home office should actively support.
Layer Your Textures
A home office that feels warm and considered is one that is easier to spend long hours in. A Scandi workspace is never sterile — natural materials, considered textiles, and a few well-chosen objects give the room the character and warmth that support sustained concentration.
A wool rug underfoot, a linen cushion on the office chair, a ceramic pen pot on the desk, a plant on the windowsill — these small details accumulate into a workspace that feels genuinely good to be in. HAY produce some of the best desk accessories in Scandi design — simple, considered objects that bring quiet colour and tactility to the work surface without cluttering it.
Bring the Outdoors In
A connection to the natural world is as valuable in a workspace as anywhere else in the home. A plant on the desk or windowsill — a trailing pothos, a small fiddle leaf fig, a simple succulent — improves air quality, reduces stress, and gives the eye somewhere to rest between periods of focused screen work.
Natural materials throughout the office reinforce this connection: a timber desk, a wool rug, ceramic accessories. A print of the natural world on the wall — something calm and considered — gives the room a focal point that isn't a screen.
Becky Innes creates artwork that works beautifully in a home office — calming, nature-inspired prints that bring the outside world in and provide a moment of visual rest in a room that is otherwise oriented toward work.
What to Avoid
A cluttered desk. The desk surface should contain only what is needed for the current task. Everything else should have a home in the storage around it. A clear desk is not an aesthetic preference — it is a functional one.
Poor seating. A dining chair or a cheap task chair will cause discomfort within hours. The office chair is the one piece of furniture in the room where compromising on quality has the most direct and immediate consequences.
Overhead-only lighting. Bright overhead light as the sole source in a workspace causes eye strain and fatigue. Layer with a desk lamp and ambient floor or wall lighting.
No separation from the rest of the home. Without a physical or visual boundary, the home office bleeds into the rest of life — and the rest of life bleeds into work. Design the separation in from the outset.
The Brands to Know
Montana — Cargo storage units and height-adjustable desks; precise, beautifully finished, and endlessly configurable String Furniture — wall-mounted shelving that keeps the floor clear and adapts as needs change HAY — New Order shelving system and desk accessories; considered, adaptable, and quietly characterful Vitra — the finest ergonomic office seating, designed to support the body as well as the room Louis Poulsen — warm, glareless task and ambient lighting for the workspace
Browse our full home office collection at innes.co.uk, or visit our showroom in Hessle, near Hull, to see the pieces in person.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is a height-adjustable desk worth the investment? Yes, for most people who spend several hours a day at a desk. The ability to move between sitting and standing reduces fatigue and back discomfort significantly over time, and the habit of changing position across the day improves concentration and energy levels. Both Montana and String produce height-adjustable desks that are as considered in their design as they are practical — pieces that earn their place in the room beyond their function.
What's the best way to manage cables in a home office? Cable management is one of the most underestimated aspects of home office design, and one of the most effective ways to maintain the calm, uncluttered aesthetic a Scandi workspace depends on. A cable tray under the desk keeps power and data cables off the floor. A compact cable box on the desk surface conceals extension leads. Routing cables along the back edge of the desk or through a desk grommet keeps the surface clear. It takes an afternoon to sort properly and makes a disproportionate difference to how the room looks and feels.
How do I set up a home office in a small space? Wall-mounted storage is the most important principle — String Furniture or HAY New Order shelving keeps the floor clear and uses vertical space efficiently. A compact height-adjustable desk can be folded away or pushed back against the wall when not in use. A dedicated, well-chosen desk lamp means you're not dependent on the room's general lighting. And a distinct rug under the desk defines the workspace without requiring a separate room.
How important is ergonomics in a home office chair? Extremely. Most people significantly underestimate how much time they spend in their office chair and the cumulative effect of poor posture and inadequate support. An ergonomic chair that supports the lower back, allows the feet to rest flat on the floor, and positions the arms at desk height is not a luxury — it's a health decision. Vitra's office chairs are designed around genuine ergonomic research and remain some of the best available at any price point.
How do I stop work from taking over the rest of the home? Design the separation in from the outset. A dedicated workspace — even a defined corner rather than a separate room — with its own storage, its own lighting, and a visual boundary from the rest of the space makes it far easier to switch off at the end of the day. A clear end-of-day routine — desk cleared, laptop closed, chair pushed in — reinforces the psychological boundary that good physical design supports.