The 10 Best home-office essentials

Turn the spare room into a business hub with this selection of accessories, from comfy chairs to super-sharp shredders

1. Xerox Workcentre 6015

£159, amazon.co.uk

No need to clog up your home office with endless machines when this Xerox WorkCentre 6015 prints, copies, scans and faxes. Using LED technology rather than the traditional laser, it delivers outstanding print quality while consuming less energy than other printers.

2. John Lewis Desk

£275, johnlewis.com

The Logan desk, made from solid oak, is chic, functional and spacious and will take you only about half an hour to construct. Made from particle board and solid oak veneers, it has sled legs and includes two useful drawers, as well as an open storage compartment.

3. John Lewis Cabinet

£299, johnlewis.com

Who says filing cabinets need to be dull? The Lloyd two-drawer home-office version from John Lewis is cheerful and stylish, with a high-gloss finish and chromed handles. It also boasts soft-closing drawer runners.

4. Sainsbury's Lamp

£26, sainsburys.co.uk

This angled desk lamp from Tu is flexible and contemporary and has the look and feel of a lamp more than double its price. Whether it's for a student desk in a bedroom or you have your own grand study, you can't go wrong.

5. SanDisk Cruzer Edge 32GB USB Flash Drive

£12.50, play.com

As we know, it isn't always practical to lug round a chunky external hard drive – so that's where USB flash drives come in. This one is tiny and fits snugly in your pocket, though holds 32GB of data. It can also be locked with a password.

6. Logitech Cordless Desktop MX 5500 Bluetooth Keyboard And Mouse

£131.99, play.com

Don't sit hunched over that tiny laptop keyboard – get one of these mouse-and-keyboard bundles and avoid the backache. It's got Bluetooth, too, so you can position yourself as close to or as far away from the screen as you like.

7. Tesco Chair

£68, tesco.com

Tesco may not be the first retailer that springs to mind when it comes to buying an ergonomic and high-quality office chair, but the Cosmos is comfortable, smart and fantastic value.

8. Swordfish Shredder

£99.99, lakeland.co.uk

Revolutionary diamond-cut technology ensures that it's practically impossible for papers to be reassembled and you can shred up to 10 sheets of paper at once, not to mention credit cards, CDs and DVDs.

9. Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Networker

£99.99, dixons.co.uk

Not only does this allow you to back up all your important documents wirelessly, it also lets you share whatever you've stored on its 1-terabyte drive between multiple home computers. So if you want to access that spreadsheet from the family laptop while you're in the downstairs bathroom, you can.

10. GPO Carrington Telephone

£44, qvcuk.com

We're talking home offices here, so why not go for something a bit retro and classy instead of merely functional? Based on the classic Bakelite design, this vintage-style phone features push-button dialling, a pull-out notepad tray and authentic ringing bell.