Desk Tour!

Trying something new 👀

A couple of weeks ago,

Emma Gannon

wrote a post about her office room, and I absolutely loved it. I love to see where writers create their magic. Made me think that maybe this might be something you’d be interested in too? So here’s a quick run through of what I have in my space, and how I’m trying to make it a more attractive space for me to work out of (rather than the couch or the bed, which are both killing my back). Sajjad and I share an office room, so it really isn’t a room of my own, but because we sit with our backs to one another, if I plug in my headphones to drown out his typing, I can pretend it’s all mine  😀.

1. I have an older version of this monitor. I go for long spells when I work only on my laptop, elsewhere in the house, but when I finally get back to my desk, like I did last week, I rediscover the joys of using a monitor. For one, it’s better for my neck. Second, editing photos on it is a dream.

2. Sajjad’s old Featherlite desk that I use because it’s the only one in the house that my monitor clips onto, sadly. Aesthetically, non-pleasing, but I’ve grown to love it. It’s the perfect size and my ikea cabinet fits underneath perfectly.

3. A single bed that is meant to be used as a futon, but is on most days where we dump everything we can’t find a spot for in the apartment. Presently has a few boxes of kitkat from Japan to be given away as gifts, a couple of totes and a corkboard I accidentally ordered on Ikea. Ocassionally, cece likes to curl up and sleep here. The mattress is from Sunday mattress, and it’s surprisingly comfortable. 

4. This little head carved from a bamboo root, from Hoi An, Vietnam.

   

5. A Sicilian puppet of a paladin knight from a bookshop in Palermo.

6. A map of the Malabar and the Coromandel Coast, from around 1748 that I gifted Sajjad for his birthday 2 years ago. Found it online at Phillip’s Antiques.

   

7. This papier-mâché tortoise I picked up from Kyoto. Tortoises symbolise luck, but I picked it up to remind myself that slow and steady is a-ok.

   

8. An Ikea vase that is so gloriously tacky, I had to have it.

   

9. A tiny wooden windup music box that plays the Pink Panther theme song when you open it, gifted by a friend. 

10. A hand-knotted rug which has a map of Afghanistan, a gift to Sajjad from a friend who used to live there. 

    

11. My dad’s old blue Olivetti Studio 45.

    

12. This gorgeous vomit-coloured cabinet below my desk. 

13. My office chair. Pink and comfortable for exactly an hour. Can’t find the exact one, but the design is similar to this.

    

14.  This MD Paper notepad! It’s nice and big, and the grid is great for when I have to draw out my writing, which happens a lot. It’s also really satisfying to pull the pages off the pad.

15. These Uniball pens are so comfortable to write with and come in a variety of food-inspired colours. (They won the 2024 Japanese Stationary Award?! Random, but I feel validated).

16. If you went to school in Kerala in the 90s, you know that Pilot pens were the ultimate. However, every time I managed to get my hands on one, I’d always end up misplacing it. So now, it feels like one of the very nice things about adulthood that I can have a pack of pilot pens in my desk, and they don’t disappear! 

17. This shelving unit from Spin that holds boxes of random stuff. The boxes are from, you guessed it, Ikea. It holds Xmas decor, letters and postcards, all the photo-booth photos we end up taking and not knowing what to do with.

18. A ceramic double-decker mug Sajjad got me from a secondhand shop in DC. Turns out, it’s an old-fashioned porcelain shaving mug. I use it to light some of that room freshner oud pellet now. 

    

    Thank you for reading! I’d love to know about your favourite space in your home. Is it your desk, or your reading nook? Maybe the kitchen?