Please help me make an office for 2?

[FightingFiles]

We are really struggling with this room.

I'm going to be working from home now, probably forever. Partner will be for a while.
Ideally we need 2 desks and this is also our spare room for people staying over (which will happen again one day).

We want to get in 2 comfortable working spaces and a sofa bed.

On the plan the bottom corner door is a bathroom, the other to a hallway. We considered moving the bathroom door to the hall but as it's bottom of stairs we can't. This room is also a 'corridor room' to the back garden, only garden access - door top right of plan.

The wardrobe and bookcase on the left in the photo are going and being replaced with sliding doors so all that mess will go.

Everything in the room but the curtains is going, realistically.

Our style is kind of 1950/60 modern. We really would like two 'teachers desks' like photo.

The sliding doors are going to be orange, and the in laws are currently storing a vintage green carpet/rug that came from Pakistan in the 1960s that I'd like to go in.

How the hell do we get it looking decent and working for us? This is our last room to do after moving in 3 years ago. Can post pics of the rest of the house if you want want to see our style.

The desks need to have the light, so they have to be in the top half of the room. Facing each other perhaps?

That would leave the half nearest the bathroom for the sofabed. Maybe think more flexibly about that. Do you actually need to use it as a sofa? Would a Murphy bed, or a pack-away-able bed such as one of those double height airbeds, be a better option? Possibly with a small bentwood chair or two for a seating area, somewhere to get away from your desk chairs that could be easily moved to the side when you put the bed up. I think you need to make the most of the bottom right hand corner, and storing the bed so it blocks less of the flow of the room seems the best use to me. That corner is not great for a workspace unless you get some really good daylight style lighting in there.

We've considered a large square table in the corner working as 2 desks. DP not keen for unknown reasons. Waste of space, I think he said.

Where do you think the desks could go while keeping a walkway to the garden?

Murphy bed we had not considered, that's a great idea. Thank you. Need to see if people could access bathroom.

You're right about the bathroom corner. It's dark.

Bumping for the daytime crowd

Would moving the doorway into the bedroom slightly to the left bean option? That way you could create a lovely built in double desk running full width of room under window and use the other end of the bedroom pretty much as a normal, decent sized double bedroom (you could probably place a full size double with bedside cabinets and still have space for a wardrobe, etc)

I would also get rid of chimney breast if at all possible too, but appreciate (having done it a few times) that it is messy and expensive.

Would moving the doorway into the bedroom slightly to the left be an option

I would love to do this but due to the weird layout the other side of the wall it's not possible. We'd lose a massive cupboard and half a room...

Chimney has to stay too, though it's incredibly annoying. We're not sure what is in that black space (house is 400yrs old) and it would be very expensive to find out. House is Grade 2 listed so very unlikely we'd get permission for material changes anyway. We considered the other door as just plasterboard.

It's not really your style but (budget depending!) you might be able to find a carpenter able and willing to recreate one of these that's a bit more in keeping with your style - Studybed - kills two birds with one stone and then you'd only have to find room for one separate desk.

Ikea do desk drawers that could sit under a table... my girls have them and they are brill.

Ikea day bed that converts to a double?

I was thinking 2 X desks 60-70cm depth would give you more or less the same width as a dining table plus sideboard, so you should be able to put them in the middle of the width and both have space to sit. you couldn't get to the door without the person on that side getting up, but dining rooms often work like that to reach the patio doors or curtains and it's not a big problem. However the chimney breast might impose too much into the space.

This is exactly why I have never managed to find anything vintage - we need to use every spare cm in our house and that usually means shopping with very precise requirements for measurements. I think to get 2 desks in with good light, and leave space for a double bed, you might have to compromise on the size of the desks, which will then make it difficult to source the style you're after. (Incidentally we are finding 60cm depth desks is plenty now that screens are so slim.)

charmingb the studybeds look amazing, we have a tame carpenter, so we're asking him, thank you so much!

@FightingFiles no worries, glad to be of help. They're not very well known but it's a local company to me so I see their vans and shop quite regularly.

I will be along one day to ask advice and opinions on my annoying shaped kitchen when we get around to doing it so I'm happy to help where I can in advance of that! 😃

We've done it!
DP has been fiddling with a design app all day and its going to be this. With this desk x 2, and a cute red sofa.

No Union flag, he was just winding me up 🙄