1. Choose melamine worktops as work furniture is likely to be exposed to rough use. Melamine is ideal as it is scratch-, water-, stain- and heat-resistant, says Mr Michael Song, Fedelco Enterprise's director of marketing and sales.
2. Since you might want to change the layout of the furniture occasionally, consider partition tables that give you the flexibility of size, he says.
3. If you want a comfortable chair that can also fit into a relatively small space, opt for the executive chair. It is smaller than director chairs but larger than typist chairs, he adds.
4. Since a home office tends to have visitors or domestic helpers walking through it, get a shredder for discarded confidential documents to ensure privacy, says Rayline Trading's marketing director Sally Wong.
5. If you plan to have frequent meetings at home, a green writing board will be easy on the eyes and it can be custom-made to fit in any irregular corners, she adds.
6. For those who want a nap before plunging back to work, a recliner will be useful. It can double as a comfy movie seat as part of your home theatre set-up, says Nubrand's marketing director Michael Koo.
7. Junior might be running around, so opt for office furniture with rounded corners, says Picket And Rail's CEO Syed Faisal Alsagoff.
8. Buy furniture that has plastic sheets covering the bottom. This way, when the floor is mopped, the wood does not absorb moisture and become prone to rotting. The plastic sheets can barely be seen so they are not unsightly at all, he adds.
9. As humidity rises when the air-conditioning is switched off, don't get drawers with plastic strips at the sides. The wood will swell with humidity and the drawer will get stuck. Get those with metal ball-bearing slides instead, he says.
10. Use fixed hooked pins to hold up shelf panels. The L-shaped ones, where one end actually burrows into the panel, are better than the normal pins which are just placed beneath the panels. They prevent the panels from sliding out when you remove a book or file and from buckling under heavy loads, he adds.
This article was first published in The Straits Times on June 7, 2008.
