This desk is a multi-functioning item of furniture in our house. It started off as a desk a few years ago, when I was studying for some exams at work and needed somewhere to store my paperwork and sit and work from. It now stores my cosmetics and primarily acts as a dressing table. It was from B&Q and cost me £50.

The desk is available in three different finishes: oak effect, birch effect, and walnut effect. I bought this desk for my previous house when I lived alone, so matching it to other furniture wasn't an issue. I opted for a fairly neutral colour, the birch effect, which was quite useful as this is the same colour as my partner's bedroom furniture from Ikea. Although they're not an exact match, they are at least the same colour wood.

When I bought this desk I lived alone, and so I attempted to construct it by myself as I was going through an "independence" stage. These days I get lazy and leave these kind of jobs to the man in the house, but anyway it was easy enough for even me to assemble. I needed a hand getting the top of the desk on, as it's a bit tricky to negotiate by yourself unless you have arms the length of Mr Tickle from the Mr Men books, but other than that it was a doddle.

The desk looks quite presentable and doesn't look cheap or nasty. It doesn't look the sturdiest piece of furniture, but it actually is quite hardwearing if you don't overload the drawers. The desk itself is very small, making it ideal when you are short of space. The exact measurements are: height 74.5cm, width 97cm, and depth 40cm. In reality, you can't really spread your paperwork out much on this desk as it is very small. I only used to use it to make notes from textbooks, and all my paperwork would cover the desk. If you were using it to store a computer as well you'd probably struggle to fit much else on there. There is a panel at the back of the unit which just makes it look more substantial and sturdy than it would do without it.

The desk has three drawers to the left hand side, which are useful for storing pens, stationery and so on. I now use this as a dressing table, with a mirror fixed to the wall above it, and I use the drawers to store my hairdryer, make-up and cosmetics. This is useful for when I've been on a shopping spree and don't want my other half to see how much I've bought, I just put my goodies straight in the drawer! The drawers are quite small and don't come out very far, but they do a good job of keeping things tidy and as long as you don't overload them, they are reasonably sturdy. The handles are chrome-looking although I'm not sure what they're actually made of.

Above the drawers, there is a little hatch just underneath the desktop. This is another useful bit of storage, although it can look messy if you keep papers here. I use this for my make-up bag so it looks nice and tidy. I wouldn't recommend storing too much paper here because not only will it look messy, it'll cause you a bit of hassle when you come to polish it.

Overall, this is a handy little desk for children doing their homework, or for occasional use. But if you have a lot of paperwork, or if you work from home, you'll need something a little bigger than this. I have a stool which I use with this desk as it is now used as a dressing table, but prior to this I had a little plastic swivel chair which had to be lowered a fair bit because the unit is quite small. There isn't a great deal of desk space, but its got some good storage space in the drawers and hatch.