When my wife and I first got married, she moved into my apartment with me. I had a large L shaped work area made from joining two desks that we shared. When we bought our house and she started on a Master’s degree, I separated them in our office so she had her own and I had mine. I also went out and bought her a good leather office chair.
It turns out this was one of the best things I ever did as far as our productivity. It was amazing how much easier it was for us both to work when we had our own work area–even though the large combined work area was more than big enough for both of us.
Every person in a household needs to have their own dedicated work area and storage space. There are many things that can be shared, but a desk and some drawers are vital for each person’s productivity. If storage space is at a premium, at least get each person a small box for hanging files.
With your own dedicated space you can leave things where you want them and unfinished projects don’t have to be constantly reshuffled to make way for the next person using the area. Even if the dedicated space is small and you have a larger area of shared workspace (say the kitchen table), having some amount of space just dedicated to your needs is vital for productivity.
I don’t think I could ever share a workspace with someone else, if we weren’t really working together.
Like for instance, my computer and all the gizmos I use take up a decent amount of space, so share that space with another person’s compute etc would be just not efficient.
We have two desks, however my desk is barely big enough for my PC (which has an ancient but quite excellent 20″ flat tube Sony monitor). This leads me to migrating to my wife’s desk for homework needs which in turn leads her to the dining room table downstairs. Hardly ideal, I know.
Anyway, I’m planning on doing some decluttering of computer junk (via decluttered.com) and getting a larger desk for myself (hopefully used or harvested from wood used in old buildings or something).
Amazon makes all of their employees desks from a door, with 4x4s for legs. Take a look at the doors at Home Depot, you can get some pretty nice looking work surfaces without handles for doors for less than $50. If you look around you can probably even find one for free.
Good luck finding a new desk. :) Up until last year I had a 20 inch Sony Trinitron CRT. They are great monitors, but I’m glad I don’t have to carry it around when we move any more.