Not all of us have a degree in interior design, and unless you can afford a professional interior designer, the situation might seem hopeless from the start. However, this is not the case. It is well within our abilities to create a home office space that we can be proud of. We will briefly cover ideas for larger home offices and look at solutions for a small home office.
Some people are fortunate enough to be able to dedicate an entire room to a home office. Should this be the case, there is an abundance of options you can play around with.
Ideally, you would start by finding an overall theme or style that you are looking at conveying. Once you have decided on a theme, it is time to start with the real fun.
Remember that the most essential pieces of furniture you are likely to invest in for a home office are your desk chair and the desk itself. Other pieces you might consider, depending on the size of your designated workspace, are a sofa for relaxing during a break or meeting with a client, an additional table (it can be small), some form of closet or cupboard if one is not built-in, a bookshelf if one is not built-in, a cabinet or cupboard with drawers (preferably something that can lock-up), an additional chair or stools, and a stylish reciprocal for waste paper.
In some cases, people might not have an entire room that can be dedicated to being a home office. Usually, then we have two options. First, we can identify a corner or nook within a suitable area. It can be part of a hallway or part of another room. Or we need to carve out a place for a desk and chair in and among the existing fixtures in the room.
The more traditional view of home offices being a room on their own is slowly losing popularity as modern homes and apartments are becoming smaller and more expensive. This has led to remarkable innovations for nook offices, shared areas, and even dual-purpose areas.
At first, it might seem strange and nonsensical to try and find an area in the home that can be transformed into an office, but all we need to do is use our imagination. Many homes have small nooks or semi-isolated corners that would be perfect for a small office. Others have great signature windows or arches where a small office would be a great eye-catching feature of a small apartment.
Furthermore, when considering a dedicated spot instead of an entire room for your home office, a significant factor, in the end, will be whether you live alone or whether you will be alone during your working hours.
As much as working in a quiet place appeals to some of us, it is not always possible. Sometimes the only workspaces available to us have shared spaces — spaces that otherwise serve a different function and are shared among others in the home.
Many home office spaces can be found in living rooms, dining rooms, bedrooms, sometimes even kitchens. There is no wrong room to make a home office in, but which room we select can impact whether we have peace and quiet during working hours or not.
Although using a master bedroom as an office during the day is not necessarily ideal in everyone’s minds, it might work quite well for most people. A bedroom is often a quiet area in the house, where others are not likely to visit. It is a more private place where quiet and relaxation are usually the name of the game. If you have a job that does not require consultation with clients in person, and you can disconnect from your work at the end of the day, then your bedroom could be a great place to set up an office area.
Make sure to have a separate chair in this case. Do not use the bed as a chair, and resist the urge to work in bed. If you do prefer a plusher and more comfortable type of chair, instead consider a small sofa as an alternative to the traditional desk chair.
In most homes, when children are around, the family room can have a lot of noise and movement in and around it. This makes it a bad example of a designated office area. However, if children are at school during office hours and the house is relatively quiet, then the family room might work out better than you think.
There are often already shelves installed, it is easy to accommodate company or clients, and it is one of the few rooms in a house that would not suffer much from being used three ways instead of one or two. Plus, it already has a sofa and a lot of sitting surfaces. There is already an additional table in the form of a coffee table, and there is often more than enough room for a small desk and some designated shelving.
At first, it seems very strange to consider putting an office desk in your kitchen, but it is almost natural for many people to be in a ‘work ready’ state of mind in their kitchens. Many of us grew up doing homework at the kitchen table, sitting on kitchen stools, and maintaining this state of mind often works quite well for us.
Another factor to remember when you decide on the kitchen is that it might not even be necessary to invest in a separate desk. It would be easy to have a prefab-created counter set up as a desk. This way, you can save money and floor space.
Furthermore, there is also already shelving on the wall; just make sure that when you are renovating or doing a custom build that you match up to your decor, can still access everything you need to with ease, and that you choose to set up against a wall with shelving that will not be in the way of other kitchen duties.
There are many key design elements that we can use to spice up our creative space. The decor will make you feel at home in your office, so it is essential to find something that works for you. You want to have a stylish feel to the area, and sometimes you might even have a custom piece that you would like to highlight as part of your collection. Whatever the reason, your decor ends up being the thing that sets your office apart and makes it a great place where great things can be created.
Here are some ideas for a central stand-out feature for your home office.
A gallery wall is a reasonably popular option because it is quick and easy to create. All that you need is a few pictures or framed photographs. These can either be the same size or varied sizes and then you can go about arranging them in a way that you like against the wall you wish to showcase.
Once you are done planning the layout, all it takes is a few nails and good aim to make your very own eye-catching gallery wall.
Whether we already have a set of these that we want to incorporate, whether we are going out to buy a new set, or whether we are being bold and building our own, we cannot deny the importance of bookshelves in a home office.
Despite the name, they are not only reserved for the storage of books and can be incorporated to store other work-related items or can simply serve as another design element where we can add plants and trinkets to liven up our workspace.
A window might seem a strange choice for an interior design item, but do not let its functionality fool you. A window can add significantly to a workspace and function as a center for design elements.
Especially when you are faced with a small apartment and find that you need to use the same area for different purposes, a floating desk can be a great alternative to the traditional versions of these pieces of furniture. It adds an exciting design element to your home and makes your limited surface area much more flexible.
Let’s also consider some overarching themes that could be an excellent place to start if you are unsure about your theme yet.
A minimalist theme is pretty popular, especially in a small apartment, but it might not be for everyone. For example, if you have a very busy mind and need your peripheral vision to fill up before you can concentrate without having your mind constantly pulled away, then minimalist is not a good option for you.
Minimalist designs are simple, often monochrome with sudden bursts of color, and more suited to people who already have minimalist themes throughout their living areas.
Let’s face it, we all have a favorite color or even a color that we save exclusively for our business ventures. And every now and then, we like to color-code our lives. As a result, many home offices are decked out in a signature color that repeats, perhaps in different shades, across the entire office several times.
This is great when it’s a color that you love and one that lifts your mood to where it needs to be so that you can be productive. Make sure to research some color psychology just to be safe. For example; Colors like yellow can hurt your eyes if there is too much of it around. So you might consider not painting the entire room yellow but have it feature strongly in the rest of the decor.
The age-old debate of vintage against modern is nothing new. Some people are very dedicated to the vintage look, and it slots very nicely into an office environment. But it’s not for everyone.
Modern office designs are trendy and lend themselves to interesting and exciting designs. There is something for everyone in the modern office handbook.
The last contrast to consider is whether you want to go with something quite colorful or whether you want to keep it down on the color radar.
A splash of color here and there in an otherwise monochrome room is always a good idea in terms of having something unique and eye-catching. But that is not always enough. If colorful and whimsical is your thing, then devote that to your office. Let your personality shine through.
Of course! There is no real reason for you to go out of your way with renovations or even painting to create a home office space. Anything you already have can be incorporated into a functional and aesthetically pleasing workspace. You just need to use a little bit of imagination.
Small living spaces are becoming exceedingly popular. One thing that stands out with small living space is that furniture and space often serve multiple purposes and can be adjusted quite simply to adapt to your needs.
Collapsible or floating desks are trendy, and there is no reason why a dining table cannot switch functionality to a desk reasonably easily.
It is not necessary to buy new furniture for a home office space. If you have old furniture that can serve the purpose of a desk and chair, you can always use that. Some touching up or rejuvenating old furniture pieces can be a fun side project and is often an excellent idea for home office spaces as it lessens the clutter in the home a little bit. It increases your motivation and sense of achievement when you manage to breathe life back into your old things.
If you do not have any appropriate furniture on hand and do not have the skills to make pieces from scratch, you can always look for secondhand pieces that can bring a timeless feel to your workspace.
No. You should be able to create a home office space by yourself. Use the internet and articles like this one for inspiration, and feel free to let your creative juices run wild. When setting up your own office space in your own home, you are allowed a kind of freedom that a traditional office space does not allow, so take full advantage of that.
With homes, the interior
More and more people in technical fields are also moving their offices home. So using a space in your home to set up a studio should, in most cases, be just as simple as creating a traditional kind of computer-based space.
A workbench or artist's easel can easily replace or accompany a computer desk.
design focuses on making a space livable and welcoming. However, in commercial interior design, an interior designer focuses on creating a space that promotes functionality without compromising style. In fact, the aesthetics of a business can be an important factor in its financial gain.
This would depend on you. You might not readily work from home, but do you sometimes bring work home with you after hours and end up working on the couch or in bed? Then you might need to consider creating a home office space for yourself. If not, then you will likely be fine without a designated space.
Managing pets in a home office environment can be tricky. Some pets will quietly take space by your feet or in a pet bed in the sun, but some might be needier.
Ideally, we would suggest closing the door, but if that is not possible, then we need to get creative. Cat owners especially have come up with several inventive ways to work around a needy cat. Creating a space for them between the computer screen and the keyboard or even gifting them their own broken or extra keyboard can be a great way to incorporate your pet into your workday.
It is best to ensure that they have enough entertainment in the room, a comfortable spot to nap, and, if not food as well, then at least some freshwater.
I don't have a quiet space to dedicate to a home office; my home is too busy.
This can also be quite a challenge when working from home.
If you share a space with adults, it can be helpful to set them down and draw up some boundaries. For example, it is not unreasonable to ask for respectful, quiet levels during working hours. But if you are dealing with children, it might be more complicated than that.
Additional child care, even when you are home, can be beneficial.
