How to Create a Home Office You Actually Want to Work In
More and more people are beginning to work from home either part-time or full-time. This is drastically increasing the importance of the home office in home design. Your home office has to be a place where you're comfortable but not so comfy that you can't be productive. It's a design situation that is a whole lot easier to create in theory than in practice.
Luckily great home office design requires just a little bit of attention to a few things. First, you want a clean and well-lit space. Second, you want a system of organization that reduces clutter and distractions. And third, you want some areas of comfort in your home office so that it's a bit more personal than the cubicle you'd find downtown.
By focusing on these three areas of home office design, most people should find it fairly easy to create a home office where the work can get done but the convenience of being at home isn't totally sacrificed. As we increasingly blend our work and home lives, we will begin to value this skill more and more.
Luckily great home office design requires just a little bit of attention to a few things. First, you want a clean and well-lit space. Second, you want a system of organization that reduces clutter and distractions. And third, you want some areas of comfort in your home office so that it's a bit more personal than the cubicle you'd find downtown.
By focusing on these three areas of home office design, most people should find it fairly easy to create a home office where the work can get done but the convenience of being at home isn't totally sacrificed. As we increasingly blend our work and home lives, we will begin to value this skill more and more.
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One of the most important things in home office design is to make sure that you create a space that is clean and well-lit. Here we see a few different types of lights including natural light coming through the window. We also see how white walls and furniture can really help enhance the existing light in a room. A well-lit room makes it easier to get down to work even if you're just working on a little laptop at a built-in countertop-style desk.
This is another example of how natural lighting can be used to make a home office space a great space to work. The problem here, however, is that the desk is right in front of the window which can create glare for some types of work. The side seating away from the desk will be good to use during times when the sunlight through the window is too direct.
This example shows why lighting is so important since the lack of it here stands out as a problem for the home office. Sure, this library office is rich with information and purpose. It's beautiful. But it feels too formal and dark to really be conducive to work doesn't it?
In addition to great lighting, a home office needs to be a really organized place. A design with lots of drawers and shelves allows you to reduce the amount of clutter that you have on your desk. A free desk frees up your mind and makes it easier to get work done from home.
This home office is a great example of how you can design in a way so as to keep everything organized even when you have to have a lot of stuff in the room. The work table holds clutter that you may need during the day (such as tape) while the rest of the mess is stored away in the many neat shelves and cabinets here. This leaves the desk free for your imagination to run wild.
One of the easiest ways to reduce clutter in the home office is to build a simple shelving unit that can contain the mess. Add a bit of art and sculpture or ceramics to this area and it becomes pleasing to the eye even though it's storing a bunch of stuff.
Although a lack of clutter is important, it's also important that the home office have some things incorporated into the design that add comfort. In this case, the art on the walls makes it so that you can feel comfortable and creative as you work even though you're in a small space and your desk faces a wall. These little things vastly improve the home office space.
What I love about this space is the great chair and footstool that you have here. The rest of the space doesn't matter so much. What matters is that you have one little comfortable spot in the home office where you can kick up your feet and relax a bit throughout the day. Nevertheless, it's professional enough to be suitable for clients to visit and to be unlikely to reduce productivity. In contrast, working from your bed can really take away from the urge to work!
Sometimes all you need is one good piece of indulgence to make your home office feel more personal. You'd probably never have a retro typewriter like this in your cubicle in the busy Financial District but you can add it to your home office to make you feel more creative as you work.
Now I'm going to go against everything else I've said and say that in the end you should make your home office fun. Yes it needs to be organized and functional and free of distraction but at the same time don't you want it to be a place where you feel inspired? Some really fun creative design tricks like the unique angled shelving here can really spice up a space without taking away from its productive possibilities. If you're bold enough to go for that, it can be the best way to approach home office design.