I have been working from home for two and a half years. In that time I have spent a significant amount of money and effort making my home office a space I actually want to be in: a proper desk, a good chair, a monitor arm, decent lighting, a plant that has survived longer than I expected. I have thought carefully about most of the things in that room.
The bin under my desk was a translucent blue plastic thing I had bought from a supermarket in the first week of working from home because I needed a bin and it was there. It cost about two pounds. It had been there ever since, slightly cracked on one side, doing its job and looking terrible while doing it.
My name is Rachel Thorn. I am a freelance UX designer from Cambridge, and I am aware of the irony of spending considerable thought on the aesthetics of a workspace while ignoring a cracked blue plastic bin for two and a half years. In my defence, the bin was under the desk and therefore slightly out of my direct eyeline. It was only when I rearranged the room in January that it became impossible to ignore.
The Rearrangement
I moved the desk to face the window, which improved the light and the view considerably. It also meant the bin was now visible from the sofa, from the doorway, and from the desk itself. The cracked blue plastic bin, which had been a background object for two years, was suddenly a foreground one. I looked at it for about thirty seconds and decided it had to go.
I wanted something that looked like it had been chosen rather than grabbed. Something that worked with the warm tones of the desk and the wooden shelving. Something compact enough to sit under the desk without taking up floor space I did not have. And something that was, fundamentally, a bin that I did not have to be slightly embarrassed about when people came to the room.
Finding the Umbra Woodrow
I found the Umbra Woodrow 2 Gallon Modern Wooden Trash Can at ALTOE. The black and natural wood finish was exactly right for my room: the black exterior worked with the desk frame and monitor arm, the natural wood interior added warmth. The treated wood construction was built to last. The integrated handles made it easy to move and empty. The 2-gallon (7.5L) capacity was the right size for a desk bin, compact enough to fit under the desk without dominating the space. The open-top design kept it simple and modern.
Umbra is a design brand I had bought from before and trusted for the combination of considered design and reasonable price. At £40.69 it was considerably more than two pounds, and considerably less than I had spent on other things in the room that had less visual impact. I ordered it on a Tuesday. It arrived Thursday.
The Swap
I put the blue plastic bin in the recycling and placed the Umbra Woodrow under the desk. The room looked immediately more considered. Not dramatically different, not in a way that required any other changes, just noticeably better in the way that removing a wrong note from a piece of music makes the whole thing sound right.
I sat at my desk and looked at it. Then I looked at the rest of the room and noticed, for the first time, several other things that were similarly wrong: a cable management situation that had been bothering me for months, a shelf that needed reorganising, a lamp that was the wrong height. The bin had been the thing I was looking past to avoid seeing the other things. Once I had sorted the bin, the other things became visible.
I spent the following weekend sorting all of them. The room is now, genuinely, a space I am pleased to be in for eight hours a day.
Six Months On
The Umbra Woodrow has been under my desk for six months. The treated wood has not warped or marked. The black finish has not scratched. The integrated handles have not loosened. It looks exactly as it did on the day it arrived.
Three colleagues who have appeared in the background of video calls have asked about it. Two of them have bought one. One of them told me it was the most useful thing she had done for her home office in a year, which I understand completely because that was my experience too.
It is a bin. It is also, in a small but genuine way, the thing that made me take my workspace seriously. Sometimes the right object in the right place changes how you see everything around it.
The Verdict
If you have a cheap plastic bin in your home office that you have been meaning to replace, replace it. The Umbra Woodrow is well made, well designed, the right size for a desk, and the kind of object that makes a room feel considered rather than assembled. It is a small change with a disproportionate effect.
Find the Umbra Woodrow 2 Gallon Modern Wooden Trash Can at ALTOE. Listed in Latest Products, Home & Garden, and Household Supplies.
Sort the bin. Then sort everything else you have been looking past.
— Rachel Thorn, Cambridge
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