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Need to Dress up Your Office Space? Turn to This Portland Design Company

Mike Richard
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For most of us, our home office is a purely functional space. On the rare occasion when we’re allowed to work from home, it’s a place to crack open the laptop and hammer away on the keyboard for eight straight hours. Amid the ongoing pandemic, however, more people are working from home for the foreseeable future. Now more than ever, it’s important to actually enjoy our work-from-home (WFH) spaces. Few companies nail the perfect WFH aesthetic like Grovemade.

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Average folks without a design degree or decorating sense have two real options for dressing up their home offices. The first is to cobble together a look from disparate pieces — a blotter from here, a mouse pad from there, and a pen cup from somewhere else. The result is usually haphazard at best. A second option is to buy a premade desk set. The worst of these from big box office supply stores look like something straight out of Clark Griswold’s office. Neither option is appealing.

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Grovemade solves this problem with desk collections that are unique, handsome, and cohesive. The core collection includes essential pieces for any home office setup. At a minimum, most WFH-ers will want to start with a keyboard mat, a mousepad, a pen cup, and maybe a succulent planter. Adding a monitor shelf or laptop stand (depending on each user’s particular setup) helps round out the set. By relying on the time-tested “form follows function” approach, every piece is thoughtfully designed to look great and maximize utility. What truly sets Grovemade apart is its choice of upscale materials. Merino wool felt, polished brass, walnut wood, and vegetable-tanned leather all add touches of class and sophistication to every piece in its catalog.

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Grovemade’s collection runs deeper than desk mats and monitor stands, however. To complement your WFH space, the company also offers beautiful, one-of-a-kind accessories. Machined metal pens and leather notebooks add old-school charm to any desk. The brand’s task knife (available in black, stainless steel, and brass) is a handsome, heirloom-quality tool milled from a solid piece of metal. Even the headphone stand and wireless charging pads are worthy of a MoMA Design Store Christmas catalog. Matching wall-mounted shelves and storage catch-alls are also available to wrangle your accessories in case you go overboard.

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We love “shopping small” to support local, hardworking, self-made businesses. So, the fact that Grovemade grew from a scrappy, garage-based Portland startup — a story that CEO Ken Tomita shared with us for The Manual Podcast — is a bonus. The brand’s catalog has expanded well beyond its original selection of wooden iPhone 4 cases. Its aesthetic has changed little in the decade since, however. If you’re looking to elevate your WFH space beyond that all-in-one desk set you bought from Staples in 2005, you could do a lot worse than Grovemade.

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Don’t forget to accessorize the rest of your home office with the best products for a comfortable and productive work-from-home space.

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Mike Richard
Mike Richard
Contributor
Mike Richard has traveled the world since 2008. He's kayaked in Antarctica, tracked endangered African wild dogs in South…
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