As the others already stated: My Desktop is hided most of the time too. The Icons there are more kind of a decoration^^
Usually they form a triangle in the upper left corner but It’s a new PC and I didn’t install so much until now.
And here my nice, huge desk (bad handy picture):
http://imgur.com/ir9Do
BTW: Buying a second screen is one of the best investions I’ve taken^^ I need space to work (the desk proofs this )