Need for light baffle on enlarging station?

I am in the midst of building my "dream" darkroom, a 25-year dream.

I had a Kreonite sink built (it looks amazing; its not hooked up) and I am using Kreonite case for cabinets, etc.

One question: I bought their enlarging station which is adjustable to allow the baseboard to be lowered. One part that it has is a vertical piece of wood on the left side that is attached to adjoining cabinet to block light.
There is none on the right side on this implementation.

My question: If my enlarger is the only enlarger being used, can I scrap this piece? I think it would make sense if another enlarger was next to mine. If my walls are white and I just have a safelight, do I need to be conserned? For esctetic reasons, I would like to get ride of this piece as the stand alone enlarger table looks better without it.

Opinions?

Makes sense to me. Is the enlarger from a school?

Good Evening, Jeffrey,

My own preference is that darkroom walls be white or a light neutral color. HOWEVER--I want the area immediately around the enlarger to be a dead, flat black; that includes the ceiling.

Konical

Loose Gravel said:

Makes sense to me. Is the enlarger from a school?

Click to expand...

Which makes sense: removing it or keeping it?

No, I bought my Saunders 4550 XLG new a few years ago. I bought a wall mount and am going to wallmount the column right above the enlarger station.

Essentially, what you want to avoid, Jeffrey, is a situation where white light from the enlarger can bounce around, potentially reflecting off some other surface back onto the print you're exposing. As such, I'd keep the side baffles on the adjustable section. Like Konical, I like the enlarger area to be flat black, but the rest of the room a neutral, non-glossy light color.

Thanks all for the opinions. I think I will keep the baffle.