Desk Setup
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How to Plan a Home Office Makeover Before You Buy Anything
After three home office makeovers, a living room remodel and a closet workshop, these are the planning steps I never skip, and the mistakes they've saved me from (plus a few I made anyway).
I’ve documented three full home office makeovers on camera (2023, 2025 and 2026), plus a living room remodel and a closet I turned into a 3D printing workshop. Every time, the part that made the biggest difference happened before I bought or drilled anything.
This is the planning process I follow now, in order, and the mistakes I still make.
1. Start with a goal, not a product
Every project starts with what the space should do and feel like. For my living room remodel, I didn’t have a clear picture in mind, but I had goals:
space for a desk my family could use
a cozy area for watching movies in the evening
a corner for growing plants
one unified look, with light wood and a bright, alive feeling
For my 2026 office, the goal was different. The furniture wasn’t the challenge, because it follows the same walnut and black look I’ve been building for years. The real goal was making the space feel like me, not another desk setup that looks copy-pasted from someone else’s taste. I wanted something more colourful, more fun and more inspiring to be in.
Write your goals down. Every decision after this gets checked against them.
2. Decide the walls early
The walls are the backdrop for everything, so I decide them before anything else.
In my 2025 office I went with an accent wall: dark grey, almost black, behind the desk, and light grey everywhere else. The room gets a lot of daylight and I wanted my plants to thrive, so a lighter colour reflects the light and makes the space feel bigger. Do I regret it? A bit. Looking back, I think white would have been better. The black wall, though, I love.
One warning about black walls: they stain incredibly easily, even from fingerprints or wiping them with a cloth. Use a good-quality paint and a sealer. I’ve forgotten the sealer more than once.
3. Build a model of the room
Before every makeover I take the room’s measurements and build an accurate, to-scale model in Blender. That’s not for pretty renders. It lets me try layouts and decide where everything goes before I commit.
It’s especially useful when you already know which furniture you’ll use. In 2026 I decided the exact height of every fixed piece in the model first. When it came to mounting, I already knew the tallest wall shelf had to sit at about 190 cm, and a laser level did the rest.
In my living room remodel, the model also showed me which layouts worked. After that I made a mood board to see how the products would look together.
If Blender isn’t for you, a floor plan drawn to scale on paper still forces you to measure everything.
4. Measure what people forget
The rug. A large rug helps define the space and adds comfort, but measure the corner it has to fit. In my 2025 office, the new rug ended up 4 cm wider than the space.
Furniture against windows. In the living room I first placed the bookcase by the window, where it blocked the light, so I had to move it. Check where the light comes from before you place anything tall.
The wall above a standing desk. At full height, a desk plus a monitor and a shelf can hit a wall shelf hung too low. If your desk has a height-limit setting, use it.
→ More on desk dimensions: How Big Should Your Desk Be?
5. Do the work in the right order
Doing things in the wrong order costs you holes in fresh paint. This is roughly the order my projects follow:
Window film first. I cover the windows with a transparent but slightly frosted vinyl. It gives privacy for the rest of the project and softens the light. It took time and a few YouTube tutorials to wrap the corners cleanly, but it looks professional.
Empty the room and fix the walls. Pull out old plugs, fill the holes with putty, sand and wipe the dust off with a damp cloth. In the closet I filled more than 30 holes before anything else.
Drill before you paint. Measure and drill for shelves before painting, so you don’t damage the fresh paint later. In 2023 I calculated equal spacing for three wall panels and drilled everything first. Use a detector so you don’t hit electrical cables.
Dry-run the layout. In 2026 I mounted the new shelves before painting and moved things around until about 80% of the layout worked. Then I took everything down again.
Paint. I usually do two coats and let it dry for a full day.
Plan the cables together with the wall. Decide where cable boxes and gutters go while the wall is still bare. In my current office, the pegboard hides the cable gutters, and three cables run through one slim gutter into a cable management box.
Furniture, the desk and the desk setup.
Decor last. Posters, plants and personal objects come at the end, once you can see the space.
How I hang wall panels without damaging them
For wood panels I use furniture rails with adjustable cabinet hangers instead of glue. You can remove the panels easily, run cables behind them, and adjust them side to side and slightly up or down. When a panel had to sit a few centimetres off the wall in my latest makeover, I added 3D-printed spacers and longer screws.
6. Choose products that work together
Only now do I shop, and every product gets judged on three things: quality, design and function. If it’s on the desk, it needs a clear job. I think of the desk like a cockpit: everything important within arm’s reach, nothing there without a reason.
Budget is real, too. In the living room I kept the same sofa because I was already over budget, and just changed the covers. You don’t have to replace everything at once.
→ The products from my current office: My current setup
7. Leave room for the setup to change
A setup is never finished. In my latest makeover I chose magnetic wall shelves so I can swap the art whenever I want. A few years ago I thought I knew exactly what my setup should look like. Now it keeps growing with me, and I build it so it can.
Want the full method?
This is how I work on camera. The Desk Setup Guide goes much further:
the complete method in 12 chapters
how I build a vision and see it inside my real room with AI before buying anything
exactly how to choose the desk, chair and monitor
complete builds at three budget levels
If you’d rather see the result first, here’s my current setup with every product linked.
Watch the video: Building My DREAM Workspace | 2026 Home Office Makeover
Watch the video: Building The DREAM Workspace | 2023 Home Office Makeover
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