The Desk
Before there was the home office, there was the kitchen table. When I was in grade school, my afternoon routine consisted of grabbing a snack and parking myself in front of our television to watch General Hospital. After my date with Luke and Laura, my sister and I headed to the kitchen table, sprawled our textbooks and binders all over, and began our homework. As we diagrammed sentences and solved for X, my mother cooked dinner a few feet away. When the clock struck 5:30, we’d return the books to our backpacks so we could set dishes and utensils on the table for dinner. The kitchen table was our altar—the center of the home where we dined, paid the bills, played games and held family conferences. If something needed to be seen—whether a set of keys or an important paper—it was left “on the kitchen table.”
When Apple introduced the home computer into our lives, we abandoned the kitchen table and created workstations in our basements. We needed more room for the monitors, printers, hard drives and the tangle of cords that connected it all. The family dispersed, and the kitchen table was orphaned save for meals. Decades later, the home office is an essential component in our homes. I thought about the evolution of the home work space as I tackled the design of a guest bedroom this fall. I envisioned a lovely reading chair in the corner, but soon succumbed to the reality that it was not the practical option for the space. A guest needs a surface to place his or her computer and work. I chose a white writing desk for the room because as a writer, I gush over an elegant writing desk and as a lover of interior design, I relish the fact that such a piece of furniture can pose as a console. The addition of a large mirror above the desk allows it to function as both. It’s a beautiful place to toil away for sure, but for me, the kitchen table shall always beckon.
Treat Yourself
The Margaret writing desk from Ballard Design.
