Planning a fitted home office or study? Here are

Room size: often the study is in what might have been the smallest bedroom. This can be ideal as you don't need a lot of space to use a computer but it will present some challenges, the first of which is worktop depth. Office desks are usually 800 millimetres deep; anything less can mean that you are very close to the wall and that can feel a little claustrophobic.

However, 800 mm (2 ft 7 1/2 inches) takes up a lot of space in a small room, particularly if your desk is to be on more than one wall. A very popular solution is a corner workstation in an L shape of 600 mm deep worktops a corner arrangement with say a 700 mm wide knee space will give you over 1100 mms from the desk edge to the corner, ample space to push the monitor back and spread out a sheet of A1 drafting paper or a craft project.

The two worktop wings, at 45 degrees to your seating position will be easily accessible and ideal for reference books and notepaper. Add a keyboard tray under the kneehole and you can pull it out, kick back and enjoy 1500 mm (5ft) of uncluttered space between you and the corner.

Keyboard trays are a controversial item, most people are for 'em or agin 'em, but for me, apart from freeing up precious worktop space, the real advantage of a keyboard tray is that you are typing at about 700 mm from the floor, as opposed to 800 mm on a normal desk height, and your elbows are bent at a comfortable 90 degrees, greatly reducing the risk of repetitive strain injury.

A flat, pull-out surface on a keyboard tray also makes it ideal for storing a laptop computer and/or using a mouse. A diagonal corner workstation in an L shaped desk arrangement will provide good workspace and easy access to under worktop cabinets and wall mounted bookshelves.