6 Elements of an Effective Kitchen Office

With kitchens being the hub of the home today, they often require a spot for keeping the household organized. We need a place to sort our mail, charge our devices, stash cookbooks, plan menus, keep track of schedules, pay bills and more.

Moroso Construction

But sometimes there’s enough room in the kitchen only for a mini-office. Here are six key features of a successful kitchen workspace.

1. Is located out of the kitchen work zone. Whether you’ve set up the popular work triangle or work zones, you’ll need the kitchen office to be close yet out of the way.

The far corners of the room are good locations.

Chair: Saarinen Tulip, Knoll

FitzPatrick Design and Cabinetry

So are spots nestled just beyond the main kitchen work area, such as bays or nooks like this. The main part of this kitchen is to the right of this workspace. Cherry provides contrast to the white cabinetry in the rest of the kitchen.

Sarah Barnard Design

This wall-mounted desk is still part of the kitchen but is tucked just beyond the cabinetry and work zones. The desk is simply a stone top and floating drawer held up by steel brackets.

Brian Watford Interiors

If space is tight, consider incorporating a secretary desk in your cabinetry. The work surface folds up to hide your mess. For a solution like this, place the desk at a height that will work with your counter stools or kitchen chairs, so you can just drag one over when it’s time to get to work.

Herrick Design Group

2. Has places for corralling and charging electronics. One thing many of us didn’t have to consider during our last kitchen renovation was the personal devices that seem to need an endless supply of wires and juice. Phones, tablets, laptops and their wires can quickly take over your outlets and counters. Cooking and delicate electronic equipment are a terrible mix. Providing room above this desk keeps things out of the way in this kitchen.

Another lovely detail worth noting is the waterfall counter that extends across the desktop and down to the floor. This picks up on a similar detail on the kitchen island in the same room.

Dunamis Interiors Inc.

Locating outlets above the desk surface makes it easier to plug in everything you’ll need. If those outlets have built-in USB ports, you’ll eliminate the need to keep track of the charge boxes that contain plugs and USB ports.

Tile: Pratt & Larson

The Aldrich Group, LLC

Also, electricians can install outlets inside drawers, so you can keep your devices safely inside while they charge.

Custom cabinetry: Neal Smith, Raymond Smith’s Cabinet Shop

Burns and Beyerl Architects

If your kitchen desk serves as your sole home office space, you won’t want printers, scanners and fax machines junking it up. An appliance garage is a good solution for keeping these things handy yet hidden.

Cabinet paint: Caldwell Green, Benjamin Moore

Mascheroni Construction

The rolling door typically seen on appliance garages is called a tambour door and is readily available at home improvement stores.

Counter: Raven No. 4120, Caesarstone

Taste Design Inc

3. Includes ample storage space. If you do a lot of paperwork at your kitchen desk, you’ll need good spots to tuck it away. If you’re a filer, file cabinets can be customized to fit seamlessly with your kitchen cabinets. If you’re a piler, baskets and shelves inside other cabinets can keep your piles organized.

Find out if you’re a piler or a filer

Dura Supreme Cabinetry

4. Provides an organizational pit stop. If your kitchen desk area serves as your home’s command central, you’ll need to keep track of invitations, bills, business cards, appointments and more. A corkboard is a great place to pin it all until you have time to pay the bill, add an event to the calendar or create that new contact listing.

Cabinetry: Lancaster door style with antique white paint with espresso glaze finish and apothecary drawers in cocoa brown finish on quarter-sawn oak: Dura Supreme; hardware: Berenson

Erica Islas / EMI Interior Design, Inc.

This kitchen desk has a bit of everything for communication: custom corkboard, chalkboard, dry-erase board and calendar.

Lighting: Dispela; flooring: San Felipe, Arto; breakfast table: custom by Erica Islas; window seat fabric: Sunbrella

Learn more about this kitchen renovation

David Heide Design Studio

5. Includes shelves for cookbooks. Kitchen desk areas are a great place to pick recipes and plan menus. Keeping cookbooks and recipes handy in the kitchen is something we’ve always done, but it usually involved letting them hog valuable counter space or shoving them willy-nilly in cabinets designed for china. Today’s designers know to size up a cookbook collection and plan shelves accordingly, and the desk area is just the right spot.

Cabinets: custom red birch, Frost Cabinets

Cranberry Hill Kitchens

This extended kitchen desk incorporates plenty of space for cookbooks on the desktop, wall-mounted shelves and lower shelves.

Riemer Kitchens & Fine Cabinetry

6. Is well-lighted. Don’t count on your kitchen’s overhead lights for proper reading light. Here, undercabinet lighting keeps the desk space clear and illuminates the entire area.

Alex Amend Photography

If you have the space, a task lamp or table lamp can add an interesting layer of light to your kitchen. This is the light to leave on during movie night, so you can get a snack without having to flip on the overhead lights in your kitchen.

Tell us: Do you have any tips for setting up a kitchen office space? Please add to this list by sharing them in the Comments section.

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