Desk Organizing Ideas

Our inventive ideas can help you create the perfect office, no matter how much extra space you have. Easy organizers and decorative touches will ensure your office is as stylish as it is functional.

Doors make great desktops: They’re inexpensive, roomy, and readily available in a variety of sizes. For the legs, you could use sawhorses, but low-rise bookcases offer the added benefit of extra storage. Thirty-inch square bookcases are the ideal height for a desk and are the same width as a standard-size door.

Prime and paint the bookcases and door in the same color. To give the desk a finished, cohesive look, line the back of the shelves with marbled paper (secure it with double-sided tape).

Bring a natural note to your home office with coordinated wood-grain accessories. All it takes to make a matched set of mouse pads, file boxes, and straight-sided jars is faux-bois self-adhesive shelf liner.

Make a favorite notebook or journal an organized repository for papers, business cards, and receipts by giving it a built-in pocket. Fold back the flap of a colorful envelope from a greeting card and moisten the glue strip with water. Position it on the inside of the notebook's cover, and press to attach. Secure the envelope's bottom corners with double-sided tape.

With the right furniture, an organizing strategy, and a few pretty touches, a dead-end hallway, an under-the-eaves nook, or another such charming corner can have surprising office potential.

Eliminate tangles under your work area by feeding all cords through a hole drilled in the desktop. Then plug the wires into a power-surge protector strip mounted on the underside of the desk. Keep cords in a coated wire basket (available at housewares stores) suspended under the desk with wire hooks. Tags identify where each machine wire comes from.

Don't let your desktop disappear under piles of paperwork. Inexpensive, unused cans can be purchased at paint stores; lined up on a shelf and anchored in place with Velcro, they become organizing cubbyholes with a modern flair.

Glass or ceramic containers get a rustic makeover when wrapped with tree bark, which can be ordered online (or found in the woods).

It can be a challenge to create a desk that's roomy enough for one person, let alone two. This symmetrical setup is the perfect solution, unifying a pair of workstations in an open configuration that fits snugly against almost any stretch of wall without overwhelming the rest of the room.

Maximize the space underneath a lofted bed by creating a welcoming small-scale study.

If a sit-down dinner isn't an everyday occurrence, then your dining room can easily double as a discreet office. Any table large enough for a family meal makes a spacious desk, and all other work essentials can be slyly stowed among the china and flatware.

With a staple gun and some carpet squares, you can create a colorful bulletin board.

Use decorative paper (or wallpaper leftovers or samples) to brighten basic clipboards.

With only minimal construction, you can transform a traditional piece of bedroom furniture into a multitasking mini office, complete with bulletin board and filing cabinet. You'll have easy access to all your essentials -- and be able to tuck them away at a moment's notice.

What may appear at first glance to be an unconventional armoire is actually a set of bookcases attached along one side. Opened, it's a compact, self-contained, innovative crafts or office nook. Closed, it's far more decorative than any tidied-up desk, without the slightest hint of its contents.

Brighten your desktop by slipping a picture of a familiar face into the lid of a round tin.

With a single coat of latex paint, you can unify mismatched gift baskets to be used as household organizers.

Give ordinary accordion folders some much-needed color and texture by wrapping them in fabric and ribbon.

Get organized -- again and again -- with these chalkboard drawers. The labels can be erased as contents in each drawer change.