When I first started working from home I had the worst home office in the world. There I was trying to do a professional job with a tired old laptop wheezing away on my knees while I sat on the world’s most uncomfortable chair. To add to my woes I had a big pile of bricks in front of my nose, dust in the air and the constant sound of hammering and drilling to keep me company.
As you can imagine, it wasn’t long before I started to long for the long commute to the office, the windowless room I used to work in and even the rotten coffee machine which I had steadfastly avoided for the last 5 years or so.
We were still getting the house built when I started working from home and it seemed like the worst possible moment to try to do some serious work online. However, with hindsight it was actually the best thing that could have happened. What it meant was that I could plan my home office from scratch rather being stuck with whatever room was left over. This allowed me to come up with the following tips for anyone planning to work at home soon.
Check Out the View
If my boss is reading this then I can confirm that I rarely if ever look out of the window while drinking teas and reading the newspaper. Having said that, having a cracking view could really help your mood at work and could come in (especially) handy if you need to be creative. There is certainly no comparison between a sweeping view of the fields or the mountains and a window which looks out onto a plain brick wall. Being creative with the position of your chair might help you find an unexpected view fairly simply.
Think of the Power
If you are anything like me then you want sockets for your PC, printer, telly, mobile phone charger and a few other things as well. You should definitely take this into account when you decide to plan a home office.
Home Communication
You might be dealing with customers and colleagues from all over the world but what about the people you live with? We often think of home offices as being solitary places but they don’t have to be like this if you design them right. I went for a kind of breakfast bar design which gives me all of the space I need but also lets me feel like I am still part of the family.
Personalise It
A home office can be a pretty boring place if you don’t add a bit of imagination to the process of creating it. In my case I love the whole Spanish / Arabic look you find in places like Cordoba and Granada .I can’t say that it resembles the Alhambra unfortunately but it has a couple of nice arches in it and the colours have been inspired by the Mediterranean. If there is nothing in particular that you want then a quick look online should give you a few ideas.
Do It Yourself?
I ended up doing a lot of the work on my home office myself, and this was mainly due to the builders letting me down. However, I am glad now that I did it this way. If you get the chance to design and then build your own home office then I reckon you will get a lot more pleasure out of it. Even if all you do is paint the walls and add the finishing touches this kind of thing is likely to make you feel more at home there.
If you are planning to design a home office or SIPS garden offices then there is no time like the present to make a start and let the inspiration flow.
