Home office expert's guide to working from home/home office tips
Working from a home office never felt so cool
No matter how you interpret what Working Naked means, it doesn’t mean that your desk has to be bare. The picture below inspired me to find out what other people have on their desks that have nothing to do with work. A desk that’s all work and no play, can make any home office desk dull.
source: Tom Newby Photography
What do you do when you don’t cook or eat at home, but you need to set up a home office? You may do exactly what entrepreneur and author Mandy Williams (aka Black of Red & Black) did, and convert your dining room into a home office.
Mandy isn’t your traditional author or business owner and doesn’t take a conventional approach in her personal and business life. Her approximately 15.8′ x 15.7′ home office is the perfect example. She could have converted a spare bedroom, corner of a family room, or a formal living room into her workspace, but how conventional would that be?
Mandy’s well-hidden home office is still disguised as a dining room, thanks to the wall of wood. Unless you opened the cabinets, you’d never know that behind the Wenge wood doors are several file drawers along the bottom, a slide-out printer stand, and open shelving for storing loose-leaf binders and various office organizing boxes/sorters. She also has cubbyholes for paper, notepads and envelopes.
Her gorgeous custom-designed, glass-top table with a leather base looks like a dining table but can be used as a conference table or desk. Not unlike many dining rooms, Mandy’s office is filled with natural light (often the best in the home).
Not eating or cooking at home seems to be a good trade-off for a stunning home office.
A guest room is ideal when family, friends and relatives stay with you, but what about the rest of the year when it sits empty? Depending on how often you have overnight guests, a guest bedroom can be the perfect room to set up a home office.
The three home offices below are small, but have enough space for a desk, a file cabinet or rolling file cart and a twin bed or a double bed. Throughout the years that I’ve been designing and organizing home offices, I’ve learned that size doesn’t matter. A 20’ x 20’ home office is just as functional as a 10’ x 10’ office. It’s all in the way you use the space. [Read more...]
One of my favorite parts of this site is the All Dressed Up page. I feature all types of home offices to inspire you to change, update or tweak your own home office. The only problem with sorting through all of these photos of home offices that I’ve designed and others have designed, is that they make me want to change my own home office…often.
So, I’ve redesigned my home office again.
I started my home office makeover from the ground up, by adding a new rug with circles in different colors and sizes. Whether you pick an area rug, wall-to-wall carpeting, or keep the floor bare, keep sound reduction in mind to avoid the “cave effect” when you’re on the phone.
Normally, my next step would have been to pick out furniture, but since my furniture is fairly new I used the desk and bookcases I already had in my home office. My desk with a return gives me plenty of room for my laptop, external hard drive, all-in-one and lamp. I use the keyboard drawer to hold extra printer paper, and the cabinet that was meant to hold a CPU is perfect for storing extra supplies.
I bought two chairs at my favorite commercial furniture store. One is an animal print chair for reading, and the other is a tan desk chair. Behind and next to my reading chair are an iron floor lamp and a small round table.
I had installed the woven shade last year, but to soften the room I added striped drapery panels. The artwork that was next to the window was boring, so to add a bit of color and interest I found a print from a site that features works from independent artists. Rather than buy the print already framed, I had it framed locally.
Next, I replaced my ceiling fan (it came with the house) with a beautiful pendant. Then I added a few more things to my desk including a multi-circle frame and three jars to hold paper clips, rubber bands and markers.
My new home office is exactly the look I’ve wanted for awhile. It suits me perfectly for now, but I may need to stop looking at so many home office photos!
Some people think that if you’re creative, you can’t be organized. Watercolor artist Laura Trevey proves them wrong.
Her perfectly organized yet creative art studio/home office includes a custom island designed by Laura, with shelves wide enough to store 26” x 40” watercolor paper. Most of the time the island is in the center of the room, but casters on the bottom of the island make it easy for Laura to move it anywhere. [Read more...]
Over the years, I’ve seen good home office design plans and I’ve seen others that had disaster written all over them. Laying out your home office is easier when you take the time to plan out your space and figure out how big your furniture can (and should) be.
I’ve worked with home-based business owners for years, who had little less than the corner of a room for a home office. On the opposite end was a client who couldn’t find space for a home office within her 6,000 SF home (really).
If you think you don’t have room for a home office, think again. Start by evaluating the various rooms in your home. [Read more...]
Photo courtesy of Sligh
When I bought my first home office desk several years ago, it fell apart after I moved it three times. I definitely got what I paid for…almost nothing. I replaced it with a desk that cost a bit more, but it was reliable and functional.
As the number of home offices has continued to grow, so has the quality of home office furniture. Finally, there are plenty of home office furniture options available and the days of dealing with cheap, flimsy home office furniture are over.
Whether you’re setting up a home office for the first time, or you’ve decided it’s time to replace your existing furniture, you don’t have to spend a fortune. In fact, you may not have to spend any money at all. [Read more...]
In this corner is Heather Anderson’s vintage home office that proves that with a little creativity, recycled materials and an eye for antiques, you can create a home office that’s a bit whimsical, functional, and, best of all, inexpensive.
With four kids at home, five years and younger, Heather set up her home office in the corner of her large dining room. She felt that it was “necessary to be near all the action.” Anyone with small children can relate.
Her 6 1/2′ x 2′ desk is made from a base she rescued from her kitchen. On the base is an antique door with a piece of glass on top to give her a smooth work surface. She cut out the drawers in the base to make room for her CPU and printer.
Above her desk is a hutch made out of 1’ x 8’ boards, with cubbies that hold her office supplies and products. She painted the hutch in a distressed gray after her facebook friends helped her decide which color to use. Next to her desk is a dresser to store more supplies.
In addition to using a black lunchbox to hide ugly cords — she cut a hole in each side— she uses a jar to hold business cards and has binders decorated with brown paper bags and antique lace.
As someone who loves to share her handmade creations and ideas, this home office reflects her personality, her creative talent and her ability to save money. The only cost for the entire project was the boards for her hutch.
You may work in your home office day after day, but some days it’s better to mix it up and work somewhere else. When you need to take files with you, the Bungalow file tote can handle the job. It’s sturdy enough to hold plenty of letter-size hanging folders, yet folds up for easy storage. It also works well for storing files in your home office, but something this stylish deserves to be taken out once in a while.
One of the (many) things I don’t miss about my corporate days in a stuffy office is my old, grey desk accessories. I’ve done my best to make sure that my home office doesn’t resemble anything close to my old corporate office. Instead of bland accessories, I have colorful and functional ones. The Poppin tape dispenser definitely fits into that category with its selection of eight colors.
There’s no doubt that a valuable photo or piece of art is worth framing. But when you have inexpensive art that you may change out soon anyway, why bother with frames? The Re-stickable Decal Photo Frame makes framing simple, and hanging even easier. The best part is that you can move the frames from room to room without putting any holes in your walls. Each pack comes with eight frames that stick to your walls or windows and won’t damage walls or paint.
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