UpDown Desks Australia Blog

Ultimate List of Accessories That Will Make Your Standing Desk Look Better

how to make a standing desk look better

If you’re reading this article we can safely assume that you’re a proud owner of a standing desk and you’re looking to jazz it up a bit.

Standing desks are a great addition to your home office, and with all the accessories you can add on, there’s no reason for your standing desk to look boring.

Working at your desk for hours on end can be draining, leading you to work on your couch or even in bed, resulting in low productivity and body pain. By sprucing up your desk space, you can make working at your desk a fun and engaging experience. 

From different types of shelves to converters, you can make your standing desk look fabulous.

Best Looking Practical Desk Accessories 

We’re going to start with some functional yet stylistic pieces to upgrade your desk. 

Before we start, we’d like to give an honourable mention to cleaning products. As much as these accessories will better your desk space, nothing looks nicer than a dust-free, coffee-ring free desk. Wiping your space down every few days will ensure a sparkly desk. 

Nothing beats a little bit of elbow grease to get things looking neat and tidy.

UpDown Desk Metal Drawer 

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This metal drawer is a sleek, functional, and stylish accessory that both looks good and adds more space to your desk. 

Our favourite thing about this accessory is that you can attach it anywhere on the desk you like. So depending on what you think looks best and how much space you have, you can attach it wherever you think looks best. 

The other stylish element to this drawer is that there is an open space between the drawer and desk, meaning that you can decorate it with some cute personalized accessories, or use it as a storage space for your laptop or stationary.

What We Love

  • The sleek colour options of either black or white.
  • 35.5cm deep which means you can add all your practical (but distracting) items to it. 
  • Small and compact so it doesn’t compromise your desk space. 

UpDown Desk Bamboo Drawer

how you can make a standing desk look better

Similarly to the previous entry, this bamboo desk drawer offers a different colour and texture, which can be fun if you’ve got a plain desk, but also create a sleek feel if you’ve got a wooden one. 

What makes this drawer slightly different is that it attaches straight to the bottom of the desk, meaning that there is no space above it to place your belongings. 

However, this makes it perfect for a home office, especially if it’s small because you still get all your space inside the drawer. 

This can create a nice clean and minimal look while still feeling earthy and homely thanks to the bamboo colour. 

What We Love

  • We love the earthy, natural wood colour and feel.
  • With a depth of 26.6cm, you can pop your less-cute desk necessities inside.
  • If you have houseplants, this colour works well with them and creates a nice aesthetic. 

Cable Tray 

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With any sort of desk you have, wires are always a problem. There are always so many of them, and they end up being clumped on your desk and shoved under it, resulting in a messy and ugly looking desk space. 

With a cable tray, you can easily organise and control the mess and get the bonus of making your desk look sleek with whatever colour you choose. 

Our favourite part of the cable tray is that you can put more than just cables in them. You can put a docking station or even a power board inside. 

What We Love

  • Two holes on either side of the tray make it accessible for multiple wires to fit in.
  • 70cm long means you can tuck most wires away with the majority of the cables being hidden.
  • 11.5cm tall makes it nice and compact and hidden from view. 

Monitor Arm 

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When fitting out your home office you often need to be a little bit space-savvy, especially when it comes to accessorising your desk space. 

This is where the monitor arm comes into play: by attaching a monitor arm to the back of your desk, you save actual desk space thanks to your monitor now being raised. 

This is a particularly useful addition to standing desks for programmers who utilise multiple screens.

With your monitor being raised to 35.5cm off your desk, you can now use your extra desk space for a keyboard or maybe even a doodling pad for when you need a break. 

What We Love

  • You can move the monitor arm depending on how close you want to be to the screen. 
  • Comes in either black or white so you can match the colour to your monitor. 
  • You can maximize your productivity and your accessories with the now open desk area. 

Shelving as Legs

You might be reading this and wondering “what does this mean?” Well, a simple but practical home office tip is to use storage as desk legs. 

You can use crates, small bookshelves, or even sturdy boxes. This is super helpful if you have a small space but need to maximise storage. 

By doing this you can store loads of your belongings under your desk while still ensuring that your space looks neat, tidy, and nice. 

You may want to invest in this if you’re looking for a standing desk for short people as it keeps all your belongings at a reachable height.

If you want to turn it up a notch, you can even use a coloured bookcase to add a pop of colour to your space.

What We Love

  • Space-saving as it maximises storage.
  • Maintains a clean and tidy area as your belongings will be hidden under your desk.
  • Easy to do if you’ve got shelving lying around at home already. 

Best Looking Fun Accessories

Cork Board / Whiteboard

If you’ve got a desk that sits against a wall and you want to spruce up your space a bit, a great and practical idea is hanging up a cork or whiteboard above your desk.

You can pin pictures up, jot down important notes, stick a calendar up, or even a motivational quote!

This should keep you able to put a smile on your face during the day as well as keep you reminded of the important things you have to do. 

Plants and Flowers

One thing that always makes a space look nicer is plants. 

Whether you’re a fan of leafy house plants, waterwise succulents, or colourful fresh flowers, plants make a gorgeous addition to your desk space.

What we recommend is matching colours together to create a clean but joyful space: maybe a mini cactus or two on your desk and then a matching green calendar on your wall. This will make your space look fun but also ensure that it’s not too distracting. 

If you’re more of a fresh flowers type of person, getting a lovely vase and changing up which flowers you get can create a calming atmosphere that increases productivity whilst also making your desk look good. 

Lighting 

Lighting is a key element to desk space but often gets overlooked as a basic need. 

Adding in some coloured bulbs to your space can improve your productivity as well as make your desk look beautiful. 

We recommend a salt lamp for a soft pale pinky-orange hue that promotes calmness and focus. This works well in addition to your standard lamp as together they create a lovely colour combination. 

If you aren’t interested in coloured lights, maybe DIY your current lamp and give it a paint job to make it a bit more interesting. You can use whatever colour you like, and even though the light will stay the same, the added pop of colour will surely boost your mood. 

best idea how to make a standing desk look better

Pen Pots 

Another basic desk necessity, pen pots often get overlooked as a potential accessory. However, because they’re essentially a permanent desk addition, they can be a great platform to add some colour to your desk.

There are so many ways that you can DIY your pen pots to look a bit more fun:

  • You can paint them in one colour
  • You can put stickers on them
  • You can paint or draw some designs that you like on them
  • You can write your favourite quote on them 
  • You can dip-dye them for some multi-colour fun

Trays 

If you’re working with a tight budget and a small room, you may not have the resources to add in drawers. 

If this is the case, perhaps adding a nice bamboo tray to your desk could be a functional and stylish addition to your workspace.

This adds some organisation for you to put your pens, calculator, and notepad on while still looking nice and classy.   

Screensaver

The final tip we want to mention might seem a bit obvious, but it often gets overlooked.

Adding a nice screensaver to your monitor can seriously change the look of your desk. Instead of having a black screen every time you switch off, you could have a photo of your family, your pet, your favourite movie character, or an inspirational quote. 

This will help motivate you to sit down and work as every time you walk past your desk, you’ll see a happy photo. 

Conclusion

With all the ideas we have listed, you can make your desk the best looking desk you know.

From practical desk accessories like a monitor arm to fun ideas like succulents, adding some accessories that you like is easy and instantly gives your desk the makeover that you’ve been looking for.

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