Working from home has its advantages, but one of the problems that many people have to face is trying to find enough space in a crowded environment. Jon Porter, who is the London-based news reporter for The Verge, has had to be especially resourceful in putting together a place where he could report, write, and review.

We talked to Jon to find out how he’s managed to do such great reporting out of a small space.

Tell me a little about yourself. What do you do at The Verge?

I’m The Verge’s UK-based news reporter. I’ve lived in London basically my entire life, and I’ve been with the site for a little over two years now.

Day-to-day, I’m responsible for covering any tech news that breaks during UK hours before the US wakes up. But once the East Coast is awake, I can get down to business reviewing phones, building keyboards, and complaining about the iPhone’s lack of USB-C.

It looks like you really had to get a lot of workspace into a relatively small area. How did you manage it?

That’s putting it lightly. I share my flat in London with three other people, so a corner of my bedroom is about as much space as I can spare for a home office. I honestly don’t think I’d manage it if I hadn’t lucked out and found this desk being given away for free on the weekend I moved in.

How did you manage that?

When we moved in, the flat was completely unfurnished, and we spent the first few months frantically scouring through services like Freecycle for any furniture people were giving away. Long story short, we met some people who were leaving the country and had a flat full of stuff to get rid of, so we rented a van and carted it all home. The van broke down en-route (don’t ask), but most of the furniture has served us well ever since.

All of which is to say that I have absolutely no idea where the desk is from, who made it, or how much it would cost to buy new. But it’s very good at packing in a lot of stuff. There’s a little shelf under the monitor where I have a PlayStation 4 Pro and an Arcam irDAC stashed, and the keyboard tray lets me keep the desk surface itself clear-ish.

Is that a wrist rest you have in front of your keyboard?

Absolutely! I love mechanical keyboards, but their keys are so tall compared to laptop-style keys that I find I need a rest to keep my wrists at a comfortable angle. I know you’re technically supposed to keep your hands raised while you type, but honestly that’s just so exhausting on my arms that I’ve never been able to stick with it.

The keyboard itself is a Filco Majestouch 2 Tenkeyless with Cherry MX Brown switches. I firmly believe that Filco makes the keyboards that feel the best to type on, and they’re what I’d recommend to anyone looking for a keyboard. The only problem is that the lettering on their keycaps can wear out a little quickly, so I swapped out the stock caps for a set manufactured by GMK. Oh, and I also installed a programmable keyboard controller in there so I could add some keyboard shortcuts for turning the volume up and down and whatever.

Looks like you’ve got a classy desk chair.

This Herman Miller Aeron was the main investment I made this year after I’d been working from home full time for a few months. I bought it after I got tired of having to sit with a pillow supporting my lower back to stop it from hurting.

In normal times I probably would have actually gone into a store and tried out a bunch of chairs in person, but unfortunately that wasn’t really possible. Instead I played it safe, and bought the chair that always seems to come up whenever people online talk about the best office chairs. I got my Aeron secondhand off eBay from a company that was clearly selling leftovers from office clearouts, but it’s treated me well so far.