How to Make the Most of a Small Home Office Space

I’m sharing lots of small home office ideas and easy DIY’s to create a more functional work space. Check out these bedroom with desk ideas, office organization hacks and more!

Every day more and more people are working from home. Maybe this is a good thing, maybe not. Either way, I would imagine a home with a home office will be a must have in the future.

A top priority for someone on the home hunt used to be a big bathroom, a large open kitchen and even a big closet. Now a days we will be seeing “home office” on the top of the list. That being said, what DO YOU DO when you suddenly have to incorporate a home office into, say, a living room or other vital part of the house?

I’m going to show you a few ways to maximize a small office space with small home office space ideas and DIY’s.

Table of Contents

How to make a home office in a small space

This is a must for many people. When you can’t afford to purchase a home or rent a space with that extra room for an office, you need to get creative. when we moved to our rustic beach cottage almost two years ago, the one thing this home lacked was a dedicated office space. Fortunately, it had two living rooms, so I used the back wall of one of them to create a living room office combination with a DIY hairpin leg table.

I got creative with an old filing cabinet and created a fun filing cabinet makeover to make it look like a piece of furniture rather than an eye sore.

I also added a few functional yet stylish elements to help with organization like the metal magnet board and a repurposed plate rack for magazine storage.

These ideas are a great way to hide an office in a living room.

repurposed plate rack to magazine holder

When you’re creating a small home office, make sure to keep a few things in mind.

More recently, I moved the hairpin leg table and created my own DIY floating office desk in our living room to match my DIY moody feature wall with built in bookshelves.

DIY floating desk from upper cabinets and butcher block

This DIY desk is a great addition to our upstairs living area and gives me (or the kids) a place to work and store things.

Bedroom with Desk Ideas

I’m not going to lie, summers are a bit chaotic for me. Since we don’t have a dedicated office space, I use the floating desk in our living room to complete all my blog work. This is rather hard in the summer with kids always around.

Because of this, I opted to move my office area temporarily into our bedroom.

If you remember the old DIY X Sofa table from scrap wood, I opted to move it up to the bedroom. I thought about buying a new desk, but since this might be a temporary move, I thought borrowing this desk for a short period of time was the smartest thing to do. Also, this desk doesn’t take up much space so it worked!

I think this is my favorite view! It’s a simple set up, and I still love this barn door I purchased from Amazon.

Small Office Space Ideas

Create functional yet stylish storage on the walls, desk space and floor space.
Don’t use huge furniture pieces- don’t add an oversized desk for a small space. You can create storage without making it look gaudy.
Make sure the colors and decor style of the furniture blends with the rest of the home (or room).
Don’t be afraid to turn an unused closet into a home office. This is great for those that need to bring work home but don’t necessarily need a dedicated home office.
Use tall bookcases instead of wide ones if you don’t have a lot of floor space.
Don’t be afraid to repurpose an old piece of furniture into a desk. You can create a desk space out of lots of furniture pieces, even old pianos.

Now for some other fantastic small office space DIY’s and ideas.