RV Desk Ideas: Inspiration for Your RV Office
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Ashley Mann spent three years living full time in a 38-foot, 5th-wheel RV with her husband Josiah and their cat, Kitty. Her favorite thing about RV life is the challenge of finding the perfect way to organize a space, and she loves seeing all the creative and clever ways people come up with to customize their RVs.
As working remotely becomes more common, many people are choosing to full time RV or travel in an RV for extended periods of time and so need to create an office or workspace in their camper. In this article you'll find all kinds of RV desk ideas, including pictures of RV's with desk and office setups, as well as lightweight desks that would make an ideal desk for an RV.
Dining Booth or Table Replaced with a Desk
One way to create a workspace in an RV is to replace the dining booth or table with a desk or custom-built work area. Below are some photos of RV's with desks added to the dining area.
(Read this article about replacing RV furniture for answers to commonly asked questions about putting residential furniture in an RV.)
First up is a picture of a fifth wheel where the dining table was removed, and a small wooden writing desk and chair were added to the space created.
Here's the writing desk seen in the photo above:
Here's another example of a similar setup, with a sit-to-stand desk and an ergonomic office chair, placing more emphasis on comfort and practicality rather than aesthetics alone.
Here's a sit-to-stand desk similar to the one in the picture. This one comes in multiple widths, so you can get one to match the depth of your slide.
Rather than purchase a new desk, the owner of the RV in the next photo put a beautiful antique writing desk in this same spot in her RV.
A corner desk like this one would also work well in this space.
Here's a photo of the dining table replaced with an L-shaped desk for a more spacious work space.
I believe this is the same desk seen in the photo above (it can be configured with the shelf on the left or right).
Below you can see the before and after where a booth dinette was removed and replaced with a custom built workspace to rival any home office.
Here's a video from the owner's YouTube channel demonstrating how the workspace above was built.
In the next photo you can see another RV office idea, where the original table was kept and moved and custom built cabinets were added along the wall.
If you need a workspace where two people can sit side-by-side to work, a table could be used instead a desk, as seen in the photo below. The cool thing about this setup is you could still use the table for dining as well, and you could even seat four people by pulling the table away from the wall.
Here's a table with hairpin legs and a solid wood top like the one in the photo above:
Here's an RV desk idea that might work if you don't want to completely lose your dining table where two floating shelves were mounted on the wall next to the table to create “his and hers” (in this case) work areas.
Here's a video from the owners' YouTube channel showing how this setup was made.
RV Slides Converted to an Office
If your RV has a small slide out, the whole thing can be converted to a spacious work area. You can see some examples of this RV desk setup in the photos below.
In this first photo, a riser was added to convert the desk to a standing desk.
I believe this is the same desk seen in the photo:
And here's a standing desk converter like the one used by the RV's owner:
Here's a closeup of another cozy-looking RV workspace:
The photo below is actually a picture from my own RV. My husband customized a cheap desk he already owned by replacing the fake wood top with a sheet of maple plywood, and I added an inexpensive bamboo shade that could be lowered to hide the clutter if needed.
RV Workspace in Rear of RV
For an RV with a rear living floorplan, the back of the camper makes a good space to convert to an RV office, as seen in the next few photos.
Full-length curtains contribute to a feeling of spaciousness in this RV renovated by blogger Ashley of JoyfullyGrowing.com. The desk for this office area was custom built.
If you like the look of a desk with hairpin legs but don't have the skills to build one yourself, here's one on Amazon:
Here's another beautiful rear floor plan fifth wheel with the same office setup and a completely different style:
Can you spot the hidden litter box beside the desk in the photo below?
Here's another custom-built workspace in a delightfully cat-centric RV. The RV owners built this desk themselves and wrapped rope around the legs for their cats to use as scratching posts.
So far most of the photos in this article have been of big fifth wheel RV's, but a desk can be added to a travel trailer as well. The desk in the photo below was placed against the wall in the back of a travel trailer where it would be in the path of the slide when it comes in, but since it's a folding table, the RV owners can easily move it and the rolling office chair out of the way for travel. They've blogged about their experience working in their RV in this article.
A wall-mounted desk might also work well in a spot like that, provided there was enough clearance for the slide to move in front of it. This one is just 5″ deep:
Here's another style of wall-mounted desk. This one is about 6.5″ deep.
RV Bunks Converted to Office Area
Another option for creating an office in an RV is to convert RV bunks to a workspace. Here's a before and after showing how corner bunk area was converted to an office. Read my full article about this RV-bunk-to-office conversion for more details on how this was built.
In the RV below which was renovated by professional RV renovation company Revamping Camping, the double bunk room was divided with the addition of a wall and a sliding door to create a single bunk room on one side and an office with two custom-built desks (one of which flips down when the slide comes in) on the other side.
Swipe through the photos in this post from the renovators' Instagram page to see how this was built:
Toy Hauler Garage Office Ideas
A toy hauler garage is basically a blank slate when it comes to the various ways you can use it. For example, many people convert the toy hauler garage into a master bedroom, kids' bedroom, or second living area, and others use it as an office, or some combination of the three.
This desk is bolted to the toy hauler garage floor, and the aluminum stand holding the monitors is attached to both the floor and the desk, so the owners of this RV are able to leave everything in place during travel.
The owners of this toy hauler replaced their lift bunks with woods slabs to create two standing desks that can be raised and lowered as needed.
This toy hauler office with black walls is one of my favorites. You can watch a full tour of this space on the owners' YouTube channel, here.
One last example of a workspace in a toy hauler garage. To create this setup, the RV owner built a pegboard desk mounted below the lift bed.
RV Desks in Motorhomes
If you have a motorhome, you may have less space to work with for adding a desk, but here are some good RV desk ideas for motorhome owners.
Many Class A RV's feature a desk that pulls out of the dashboard on the passenger side, as seen below in this photo from Marc and Julie Bennet of RVLove.com.
Marc and Julie had the idea of turning the driver's seat into a workspace as well, which they accomplished by building a desk that attaches to the steering wheel. Marc and Julie recorded their entire RV renovation process in a series of videos which you can find here.
In many motorhomes, like the Class C motorhome shown below, the space between the door and the passenger seat makes an ideal spot for a small desk.
This desk was placed in the same spot, but was mounted directly on the wall with folding shelf brackets that allow it to fold down when not in use. (Here's a link to the brackets that were used.)
A wall-mounted drop-leaf desk like this one would be ideal for this spot as well.
This motorhome originally had a jackknife sofa in the space between the door and the passenger seat, so the owners removed it and built a custom desk in its place.
You can swipe through this post on their Instagram page to see photos of how they removed the jackknife sofa and installed the desk:
More RV Desk Ideas
Last, I wanted to just share a few more desks that I've found that make clever use of space and would be ideal for an RV.
I think this one is really neat because it's mounted to the wall, and the desk part folds down to cover the bookshelf. It takes up very little space when it's folded down, and during travel it would stay in place and the desk would prevent items from falling off the upper shelf.
Another RV desk option is to sit on the sofa to work. This stow-away desk can be added on either end (or both ends) of a couch and would work for eating, too.
For more RV furniture ideas, check out some of my other articles:
