Desks: Studious style statements

As students' thoughts turn to books, it might be time to rethink your work space at home. The best place to start is the desk, the centerpiece for transforming the cerebral into the tangible.

It's the one spot in the home you approach with a definite purpose. It's the place to get serious about studying, paying bills, writing and unintentional daydreaming, so why not make it great? The Las Vegas Furniture Market and the International Furniture Market at High Point, N.C., offered some possibilities:

Nothing ignites the imagination more than travel, which is why Steven Shell's cartographer's desk with drafting-table elevation and drawers for storage is almost attractive enough to be distracting. Once you have studied the hand-painted map that makes up the work surface, you will want to use it to plan trips everywhere from Outer Mongolia to the Outer Banks. (For more information, visit www.stevenshell.com.)

The painter's work desk by Bob Timberlake Home for Century Furniture is the perfect place to spark your creative spirit, whether you choose to doodle a game of hangman on the gas bill or start writing the Great American Novel. In mahogany solids with open storage, pencil tray and tilted lift lid. (www.centuryfurniture.com)

Not just for recipes anymore, Paula Deen's sawhorse work table for Universal Furniture is a real workhorse. The piece from the Down Home Collection has three drawers and four shelves, plenty big enough to hold the weight of your interests from pencils to photos, from books to iPads. (www.universal furniture.com)

If you have space issues, then French Heritage's slanted corner desk with ebony and red trim and brass accents might be just the ticket for tackling tedious tasks. It features drop-leaf sides for expanding or contracting your area of study and will fit nicely into any corner of the house. (www.frenchheritage.com)

Preppies love their style coupled with color, so Lilly Pulitzer's Kelley campaign desk in green lacquer with brass hardware will have them feeling right at home and ready to attack everything from the J. Crew catalog to that Princeton application. (www.lillypulitzerhome.com)