What makes a good home office? Is it the chair or desk? The photos and pieces you display? Or is it the technology and equipment that you use throughout the day? We say it's all of these things and more as we present our ten steps to making your home office a better place to be.
1) Don't get too techy. It's the first and second rules of Tech Club. Remember, this is your home, not your office. Don't let your tech dominate the space.
2) Choose comfy but attractive furniture. The office aesthetic might have a stylish side if your company affords Herman Miller and other designer furniture, but quite possibly it's just cubicles and crappy office chairs. Select furniture you'd want in your home and that fits your design aesthetics. Orient yourself and furniture in the room so you're most comfortable. There are no constraints based on rules and requirements at the office - you can move your desk if you want to!
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• The Importance of a Good Office Chair
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3) Hide away and organize your cables and tech. You want to maintain a clean and organized home, and your home office shouldn't be an exception.
• Cable Organization Tip: Zip Lock Bags For The Storage Win
• Home Office Inspiration: Staying Organized
• How to Organize Your Loose Cables in an Afternoon
• How To: Hide Cables
4) Make it personal.
Add photographs not as you would place simple frames on your desk at the real office, but consider the room a space in your house first and how you would decorate it that way.
5) Let there be light! You're not living and working in a dungeon and you don't have to deal with crappy overhead fluorescent lighting if you don't want to. Natural light's warm glow is ideal but given a lack of window options choose lamps with soft bulbs. Be wary of monitor placement in relation to the window so you're not dealing with glare coming off the screen.
• How to Create the Perfect Home Office Lighting Setup
• Colorful Task Lights to Brighten Up Any Home Office
6) Bring in the greenery. Mother nature helps us breathe better and brings a warm touch to the space.
• Add a Plant to your Desk, Feel Better
• Spring Clean Your Office Air with These Eleven Easy Plants
• A Home Office Upgrade You Might Consider for 2012
7) Get comfy under your feet. Get a nice comfy rug instead of the traditional office chair mat or commercial grade carpet. Kick off your shoes and relax your feet as you work. While at the office this would probably draw stares (and a few wrinkled noses) but there's no shoes required at home!
• 3 Modern Office Chair Mats that Don't Suck (Completely)
8) Let the tunes roll! Is your office like a library with the librarian throwing you dirty glances and shushing you as you rock out in your cubicle? If you like listening to music while you work by all means turn it up! This is also helpful if the kids are being noisy and you need to get some work done. ;)
9) Let the pets in! It's rare an office that allows pets in the building. From our own personal experience it puts us in an amazing mood when our puppy is laying at our feet. We're relaxed and can focus on our work in a good mood. We get things done so we can finish up and go play!
10) Who's the boss? You are! Remember, at your home you're your own boss and you make up the rules! Particularly when it comes to knowing yourself and what makes you work at your best so you can get out of there sooner with your work done and go enjoy the lovelier things in life.
(Images: photobank.ph/Shutterstock)
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Looking at starting my new hme office n the next few weeks. Great tips to bear in mind :) thank you
A lot of home offices have to do double or triple duty, often as the guestroom or playroom or even nursery as well. It would be nice to see how others manage that sort of room multitasking, successfully balancing style and function.
I mixed the paint color for my home office myself. It's a periwinkle blue, greyish and muted. My daughter painted birch trees on one wall, and it's serene and beautiful in here!
Housefulloffur: Sounds lovely! I've worked from home for decades. My home office is (sadly) a catch-all for sewing, items for home reno in progress, the family's "donate to thrift store and freecycle" bags, and too much more. I'm closing my eyes and imagining your space. Maybe that image will motivate me to make my office serene and beautiful. :D
:)
I agree that having furniture that you love is so important! Sitting down to my vintage steelcase desk that's been painted blue in my 1970s orange office chair is always a great way to start my work day. After working in cubicles for so long having the ability to open a window, kick off my shoes and enjoy color and art is a dream come true! Now, if only I made as much money as I did in my cubicle...
Good lighting is key to a comfortable and efficient home office. Your notes about "corrective/ambient" light are right on. The simplest way to do this is with a table lamp on your desk. Easy, attractive and balances out a lot of home office lighitng problems.
Learn more at http:www.thesmarterhomeoffice.com . Click to get the free office lighting success guide.
No cantilevered chairs I noticed. Is it a rule that they are for living/dining rooms, but not office?
My favorite thing about working from home (aside from occasionally working in my bathrobe) is that I get to decorate a room, when previously I've only been able to decorate a cubicle. A note about pets though -- if your cat, like mine, likes to sleep on your keyboard consider letting him/her have a desktop pillow. Mine will sleep contentedly on a heating pad (on low) for hours on end! No heating pad = no work completed.
Thanks, Gilliane: it's messy at the moment, but the colour is serene, and the mural inspires me. I can see it through the open door from our bedroom, inviting me in. Joy: I love the heating pad idea! I will have to do this since our cat loves to curl up right in the way of my work. Cute, but not so productive!
It would be fun if AT ran a piece on office cubicles to see how creative people can get with just basic furniture and a few square feet.
I do appreciate the photogenic ideal of having an office that is not dominated by tech but that is not possible if you're a real geek or heavily into multimedia creation. The tech peripherals and cables required in these situations are not optional. I for one am a little tired of the message that is constantly sent to geeks by the media that our work spaces are ugly. A visit to the work space of any working musician, editor, filmmaker, hardware engineer, podcaster, etc. would not measure up to the model you're promoting here. I'd really like to see a post about the work-spaces of these kind of creatives - geeks for whom hiding the tech is not an option.
I was inspired to write a quick reaction to this piece: http://geek.theothermartintaylor.com/2012/02/real-geeks-dont-read-dwell.html
Regarding the cables-I keep the unused ones in a drawer, but with three computers, a printer, scanner and a sewing machine, there's no practical way to keep the "tech" out of sight. My home office is comfortable and well organized-I have beautiful natural light, linen curtains, floor to ceiling bookcases, embroideries and photos from around the world on the walls, plenty of file cabinets and an armchair for reading or "guests." Any creative person knows the most important part of the office is a door that closes. It's never going to be a showcase if you actually work there.
@THE OTHER MARTIN TAYLOR - There's a fine line with tech and design, which Apple actually straddles it pretty well. I love both the geek and design aesthetics. My desk used to be four matching 24" monitors, multiple matching external hard drives, big case, the whole nine yards.
@BROOKLYN BABE - It definitely can be tough to get the equipment out of the way. One thought for printers is a wireless version that allows you to move it further away from the computer without a cable connection and then perhaps stick it in a cabinet with a wire hole cutout in the back. That's what I'm thinking of doing as I'm building my home office now.