r/Workspaces

Wayne, a designer and photographer, built his desk entirely by hand — ocean board planks, hand-stained brown for a weathered vintage depth, then anchored by a black walnut riser and a Macintosh-era inspired dock that deepens the retro signal. The rest of the surface pulls deliberately in the other direction: carbon fiber mat, sparse keyboard, minimal objects. His take is straightforward: a setup reflects taste, not a template — so he engineered the tension between vintage and precision rather than picking one.

Gear list:
- Desk: Custom DIY (ocean board, brown stain finish)
- Monitor: Redmi A27U Type-C
- Monitor arm: Huixiang K-series
- Monitor light: BenQ Screenbar Pro
- Keyboard: Cherry K5V2
- Mouse: ATK R1 SE
- Chair: Xiaoji X5
- Desk riser: TOD black walnut
- Laptop stand: Twelve South
- Hub: wokiys M5 (Macintosh-inspired)
- Storage: Orico Minimate
- Audio: Huazai Haijingfang
- Desk mat: Songne carbon fiber texture
- Ambient: Govee Life
- Camera: Sony A7M2

Hexcal cable management runs underneath — the one invisible layer that keeps the handbuilt surface exactly as intended.

*Setup Festival 2026 · r/SetupFestival*

I’ve got around £2,000 available to improve my workstation setup and would love advice before I start buying things.

Current setup:

• MacBook Pro
• Single 23-inch monitor
• Desk depth: 78 cm
• Standard seated setup
• Standing desk

What I actually do most of the day:

• Read and annotate large numbers of PDFs (academic papers)
• Write in Word
• Data analysis and coding in R
• Usually have multiple windows open at once (PDF + Word + R + browser)

What I’m considering:

• Moving to a Mac mini setup
• One large 40-inch monitor instead of multiple smaller monitors

My priorities:

• Productivity for research and writing
• Ergonomics / avoiding neck strain and poor posture
• Good text clarity for long reading sessions
• Enough screen real estate to comfortably view multiple documents at once
• Clean and relatively simple setup

Any setups from people who spend most of their time reading/writing rather than gaming?Open to completely changing direction if there’s a better approach.

I used to work in MES development, and now I’m working as a Teamcenter pre-sales engineer.👷

Looking for recommendations on desk type and placement for my office room. Photo attached for reference.

Room layout:

• Photo taken standing near the French double doors
• Left side = built-in white shelves
• Right side = large 3-pane window wall
• Front wall = baby blue accent wall

Option 1: Long straight sit-to-stand desk

I initially planned to place a long sit-to-stand desk parallel and near to the shelves wall, facing the windows.

Concerns:

• visible monitor wires/cables from behind
• desk would “float” in the room
• worried items could fall off the back side
• not sure how clean it would look

Option 2: L-shaped sit-to-stand desk

Second idea is an L-shaped desk in the corner where the blue wall meets the window wall.

Pros:

• more usable desk space
• easier cable management
• cleaner setup overall

Issue:

• windows are west-facing
• room gets hot from ~1 PM to 5 PM even with sheer curtains

My setup:

• 3 x 24” monitors
• 3 closed laptops (office/client/personal)
• wireless keyboard/mouse
• iPad
• iPhone/AirPods charger

Main priorities:

• clean look
• minimal visible wires
• comfortable for long workdays
• good lighting without getting roasted in sunlight

Would appreciate suggestions on:

• best desk placement
• straight vs L-shaped desk
• desk size recommendations
• handling heat/glare from west-facing windows
• cable management ideas

I have a lot of the books on the desk not sure if I should buy a bookshelf or hanging shelves. Also the frame seems too small for behind the desk

What do you think about my workspace for studying? Usually I would also place a notebook in between my keyboard. I don't have much stuff because I kinda have to always be ready to move everywhere I want without much hustle, but recently I've been thinking about buying a monitor and big leather mouspad. Any ideas of what I could improve here?

I also kinda follow ergo philosophy as you can see with keyboard and mouse and screen level...

Any ideas for improvement is welcomed 🫶

My husband and I just bought a new house, and I'm struggling to decide a layout for our workspace.

For context, I work from home and am also an artist. I need space for my drawing tablet, monitor, sketchbook, all my pencils and pens and brushes, and a large space where I create stop motion figures and environments.
My husband works full time out of the house, but also needs desk space for his monitor and laptop because he is a writer and an occasional gamer.

Because of all this, our desk space has to be pretty huge, and I'm struggling to decide how to lay it all out, especially keeping feng shui in mind.

~ Note, the shape of the desk is not a problem, as I will be custom building a new one :) ~

I've attached some pics of different layouts I created in Floor Planner

1. this one is great for facing the door at every spot of the desk, but it would require me to cover the closet

2. this one is nice too, though I wondered if the entryway might be too squished

3. the worst for feng shui, but very open and spacious feeling. Also covers the windows which makes curtains a pain

4. might be nice for having lots of desk space, but a really tight squeeze

5. wonderfully open and spacious, but might be over whelming and bad feng shui

6. this one is kind of just meh to me, it feels very middle of the road in all aspects

zjay is a Guangzhou-based photographer and custom keyboard builder — a self-described homebody whose desk reflects exactly that: built to stay in, not to perform on a spec sheet. The warm-dark palette, autumn forest wallpaper, and industrial yellow keycaps read as a coherent aesthetic without needing explanation.

Gear:
- Desk: Hexcal height-adjustable frame with custom solid wood black top
- Keyboard: Matrix My2K 80 Industrial Yellow
- Mouse: Lofree
The Hexcal frame is the structural backbone here — the custom solid wood top does the rest.
*Setup Festival 2026 · r/SetupFestival*

5600x + TUF RTX 3070 + 4x8Gb 3200Mhz + B550 + 60hz 1080p

I swapped for a flat panel monitor as opposed to the curved. New keychron keyboard with new caps and a new mouse. Also added some more Nic-nacs and a Bosch desk lamp.

🔫 배진남

It's ergonomic, helps me stay focused, i can game here, and my aesthetic. Couldn't ask for more.