Home Office

Table of Contents

Introduction

My home office has been an unusable pile of boxes and old computers since we moved to this house a few years ago. We started working on it this month.

After several weekends of unpacking boxes, organizing or recycling old stuff, and assembling new furniture, I finally have a home office which is suitable for work and has plenty of space for projects.

Desk

Corner desk for working on computers and electronics. The goal was to have enough desk space for a utility computer and the parts for couple of long-term projects.

The area around the desk is still a work in progress; we still need to buy a better chair, replace the curtains, and repair the damaged drywall.

Shown in picture:

• Tangkula L-Shaped Computer Desk: 24" depth for working on computers. L-shaped to fit in the corner.
• Samsung 32" UJ59 Series 4K UHD Computer Monitor: 32" 4K monitor with two HDMI inputs. One of the HDMI inputs is connected to pumpkin, the utility Pi 5, and the other HDMI input is used for whatever system I am working on at that moment.
• Arteck Universal Backlit 7-Colors Bluetooth Keyboard: Full-size backlit Bluetooth keyboard with integrated touchpad.
• USB Keyboard: Make and model unknown. Often used with a PS/2 adapter (yeesh) for old computers.
• Raspberry Pi 5 8GB (pumpkin): Connected to the monitor and bluetooth keyboard. Low power, small form-factor utility computer used for reading documentation, flashing microSD cards, and working with USB peripherals.
• Logitech G5 USB Mouse: Ancient USB mouse. Used for old computers.
• Raspberry Pi 5 8GB (lemon): Headless SBC with the green LED in the tall round plastic food container to the right of the monitor. Used for ARM Cortex-A76 software development and testing.
• Odroid N2L (pizza): Headless SBC with the red LED in the short round delivery food container to the right of the monitor. Used for ARM Cortex-A73 software development and testing.
• Monoprice Maker Select 3D Printer V2: 3D printer. Hasn’t been used for a few years.
• Several old computers. I am clearing and recycling them as time permits.

Chair

We organized this corner of the office so it feels like a tiny living room because I do not like working on a computer while sitting in an office chair at a desk.

Instead, I prefer sitting in a comfy chair next to a coffee table with enough space for a couple of laptops, some gadgets, and a beverage.

Shown in picture:

• La-Z-Boy Recliner: Don’t know the exact model. Before buying this recliner I went through a series of chairs that either broke or wore out within a couple of years. This recliner has worked flawlessly for 10 years.
• Blackout Curtains: Bright light gives me a headache, so these curtains block it.
• Coffee Table: Bought at Kmart many years ago. Make and model unknown. I like the wood finish and the bottom shelf. I’m told this is a “shaker” style coffee table.
• Side Tables: We bought these for our living room but they didn’t really fit. I like the marble so I commandeered them for my office.
• Tissue Box Cover: Without this cover I can’t remove a tissue from a small tissue box without dragging the entire box off the table.
• Rug: Easier on my feet than a cold hardwood floor. Also protects the floor from scratches. Not sold in the US any more.
• Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon, 9th Gen: Personal laptop running Debian Linux. Awesome laptop with a fantastic keyboard. Shown in the picture above to the right of the recliner.
• Microsoft Surface Book: Work laptop. Awful laptop with a mushy keyboard and terrible battery life. Shown in the picture above in the center of the coffee table.
• Bose SoundLink Mini Bluetooth Speaker II: Bluetooth speaker that is surprisingly loud for it’s size.
• Baseus USB C Charger: GaN charger used to power both laptops, the Bluetooth speaker, and other USB devices as-needed. Shown in the picture below on the lower shelf of the coffee table. We have four of these chargers throughout the house.

By the way, most of the Pis and SBCs in our house are named after pies:

• shown in picture: lemon, pizza, and pumpkin
• located elsewhere in house: fish, keylime, peach, and pecan
• dead: cherry and meat

Shelves

Storage shelves with lots of clearly labeled transparent bins so I can quickly find what I’m looking for. The boxes in the closet still need to be unpacked and organized.

Shown in picture:

• Bookcases: Bookcases with adjustable-height shelves that fit perfectly in the available space. The style also matches my desk and rug.
• 12 Quart Clear Storage Bins: I picked these bins because their depth, height, and width were a good match for the bookcase shelves. I bought 12 bins total (two 6 packs) and have 3 remaining.

Coda

Below are some pictures which didn’t fit in the sections above.

This is how my office looked at the beginning of the month:

Most of the computers in the back corner of the picture above were junk and have been recycled. A particularly egregious example:

On a more positive note: I think the case for pumpkin (the Pi below the monitor on the desk) looks pretty slick:

The case is a passive heat sink: the inside has metal strips and a thermal pad which draw heat from the CPU then dissipate it via air channels on top of the case. The case does have a fan, but it only spins up for a few seconds at boot and is not active during normal use (at least for my workload).

Update (2023-07-29): While reviewing this article:

Update (2023-07-30): Add links, fix typos, improve wording.