This Is the Ideal Clean White Gaming Setup Equally Suited to Work

Everything is based on my own daily use and budget, which means it is something you can make without going bankrupt or needing to take on a carpentry apprenticeship.

In this post, I will give you a general tour of the setup.

This series consists of several posts that you should also check out!

How to Build an Easy DIY Desk Shelf and Monitor Stand in 5 Minutes!

The Secret to Designing an Aesthetic Desk Setup

How to Make Cool Posters for Your Desk Setup

See all my featured items

If interested, you can see all the items in my articles and images around the web on my featured items page.

The headaches of designing a professional Batcave

I, like almost everyone else in the entire world, got the possibility to work from home when Covid surfaced. I only had a gaming setup and my kitchen table. No problem… until my neck locked and I constantly had to ensure my background was blurred in online meetings because my setup was more akin to a Batcave than a professional workspace (yes, I know you’re more interested in the Batcave now, but … no).

This is where my headaches began. It isn’t easy to design a home office that doubles as a professional workspace and an immersive gaming setup for several reasons:

Usually, work accessories are designed for ergonomics and practicality while gaming is designed for speed.
The aesthetics of a productive and distraction-free workspace do not go well with RGB and the dominant black palette of gaming peripherals.
Buying interiors and accessories for both work and gaming is costly and impractical.
Marketing departments make you believe that you need both types of accessories while, in fact, they share many similarities.

As such, my setup is centered around a clean and minimalist style that can be transformed into a gaming room with proper gaming lighting. Everything is hidden if possible, but near at hand. My peripherals are chosen for their versatility in both gaming and productivity uses.

Design concept – bright natural light, affordable, minimalist, and functional

The design concept is a bright, minimalist, functional space with a lot of natural light – equally suited to work and gaming. I stick to white as the base color with some bold orange, yellow, and teal as accent colors. I really like a white base color on my more permanent items, because all other accent colors go with it. I can just switch out a few inexpensive items and the impression becomes completely different.

Natural light even in the evenings allows me to skip running a lot of wires, so I can keep a minimalist and clean design. I use greenery and oak wood to give the room some warmth, as the white palette will look sterile if overwhelming. This looks particularly gorgeous with sun rays coming in, reflecting flower patterns on my walls.

It is important to me to get the most value for my money. This means not buying into all the crazy expensive Instagram and YouTube setups (of which most are sponsored and no mortal will be able to afford). IKEA or second-hand will do just fine. The challenge is to find it and put it together in a meaningful way without spending huge amounts on a single item, so I won’t be able to afford the rest. My chair is second-hand from an outlet. I bought the feet of my standing desk from a company that moved HQ and had to sell all furniture, then added a tabletop of my own choice. Most of my posters are homemade in A4, which means I can switch them easily. My desk shelf is DIY – you can see how to make it yourself here. My PC is self-built mainly from demo parts.

You can see a full item list by the end of the post.

Welcome inside my home office and gaming room

My office is a small, south-facing corner room with windows on 2 sides, which means sunlight and a very bright room. Moreover, it is located on the upper floor, which is quieter. The room is a small 15 sqm, which makes it cozy and everything is within reach when I’m sitting in the middle.

The layout of my workspace

clean white gaming setup equally suited for productivity

A few of my considerations:

I keep a lot of closed storage to hide away the things I don’t need near at hand. The things I do need hang somewhere under the table or on my pegboards. My desk surface should be tidy. It is, after all, a workspace and not storage.
My plants have been picked out, so they only need to be watered once a week – only green, no flowers or colors.
My desk is facing the windows for the view, which also minimizes glare on my monitor.
As I am right-handed, I have organized all my stuff on the right wall on 3 pegboards. I can quickly find what I need and place it on my desk or choose to keep the surface completely clean.
When I’m in online meetings, my background is just a white, neutral wall and some greenery.
Most peripherals that scream gaming are tucked away but near at hand.
I have Philips Hue lighting behind the pegboards and spread out around my room. During the day, they’re barely noticeable. In the evenings, I can turn them on and sync them with my PC to get the game groove on.
Some of my binders are winking. It’s by design ;D.

My coffee and tea station

My brain simply doesn’t work without coffee. I have more “advanced” coffee options in the kitchen, but when I work, I want to push a button and get on with it. I can never remember what the Nespresso capsules contain, so I have a print “menu”, which also works as decoration.

I use the monitor for meetings or to keep my mailbox open during work. In the evening, I use it for TV and YouTube. It also features Philips Ambilight, which, as you may have guessed, goes well with my other lighting.

Small features

wall-mounted-remote-controllers — Wall-mounted but detachable remotes for my lighting and blackout curtains.

Wall-mounted but detachable remotes for my lighting and blackout curtains.

Hide and seek with cables and gaming peripherals

The cables are connected to a dock under the table, so I can connect my Macbook to my setup. My Xbox controller is easily within reach but tucked away from sight inside the bookcase.

Under the table, my gaming headset is mounted out of sight but again easy to reach. My PC is on an open shelf beneath the table with empty space above for the fans blowing out heat. The USB hub in the front allows me to place my wireless transmission closer to my peripherals and I don’t have to crawl beneath the table every time I need to plug in a device.