How To – Designing And Setting Up Your Home Office

Setting up your home office the right way is vital to a creating a successful work from home environment. So whether you’re a work from home veteran thinking of a home office redesign, a newbie home entrepreneur or your company gives you flexible work from home days, and your setting up for the first time, you need to give some initial thought to exactly what it is you want to achieve.

In other words some careful thought and planning before you set out will ensure you end up with a home office that’s comfortable, pleasant to work in, and of course conducive to getting things done and achieving your work goals and tasks!

some careful thought and planning before you set out will ensure you end up with a home office that’s comfortable, pleasant to work in, and of course conducive to getting things done

So let’s take a look at the most important consideration.

Number one priority, before we do anything will be to decide exactly where in your home your office will be situated. And this is a vital first step. The biggest mistake we see home based workers make is not having a dedicated work from home area and not give it some forethought before they rush out to buy a desk. In other words don’t try to do a creative day’s or even a few hours work from the kitchen table! Trust us, nothing will frustrate you more than trying to get something finished before the kids or spouse gets home and you are scrambling to clear your laptop and files away when you really want to leave them exactly where they are!

So whether it’s a corner work area in a loft or a small space in a city apartment, a spare bedroom or a full blown purpose built den or study a dedicated, designated area or room that then becomes ‘your’ home office and space is absolutely essential to becoming a successful home worker or home entrepreneur.

So now we have decided where you going to work, let’s think about designing your office work area.

A Study, Den or Empty Bedroom as a Home Office.

Let’s go right to the top here and imagine that your one of the lucky ones to be able to put a room to one side to work in. The first thing we would recommend you do is carefully measure it and draw a floor plan putting it down on paper. It’s one of the simplest and most effect ways to plan and get the most out of your home working space.

And this doesn’t have to be complicated; you don’t need fancy templates or software. Simple measure the room, grab a piece of paper, a ruler and pencil and draw the shape of the room using either 1” to the foot or if it’s a large room, (lucky you!) ½” to the foot. If you work in metric measurements that’s (roughly) 2.5 cm to 30 cm. Although if you do work in metric you’ll likely be measuring in meters.

And this doesn’t have to be complicated; you don’t need fancy templates or software. Simple measure the room, grab a piece of paper, a ruler and pencil and draw the shape of the room

So now you have the outline shape of the room down on paper, pencil in the positions of the windows, door, closet or cupboard doors or anything else on the walls they may impeded placing a piece of furniture such as a radiator or fireplace.

Now you’re set. You’re in a far better position to plan your office, the home office furniture that goes in it, and the orientation of your desk. Lighting and view, what you end up looking at is all important. If you have windows that look out onto a yard, garden, balcony or cityscape then so much better.

Small Space or Existing Room Home Office

Fitting a Home Office into an apartment or loft corner, into a living room or spare bedroom that’s going to be kept as a guest room or any room for that matter that is still in use and part of your existing living space is the same principle as a dedicated office and home work environment. We still recommend measuring the whole room and sketching it down on paper before you start to even consider buying furniture and moving existing furniture around to squeeze your new office furniture in. It’s going to need a different approach to choosing furniture than having your office in its own closed off space, but more of that later.

We still recommend measuring the whole room and sketching it down on paper before you start to even consider buying furniture and moving existing furniture around to squeeze your new office furniture in.

Planning Your Home Office Design And Layout.

First things first, where are you going to put you? The single most important factor in this whole equation is where you feel comfortable, the whole feng shui thing. So grab your floor plan, a chair, and move yourself around until it just ‘feels right’. Sit down, look at where you are on your floor plan and that’s where your home office desk and your office chair goes. It doesn’t have to be complicated, you don’t have to get a feng shui practitioner in, it just has to ‘feel’ right to get maximum comfort and productivity out of your working environment. Simple, but of the utmost importance to how you’re going to feel spending many hours creating your empire.

Now you can measure your space and start to think about exactly what type of desk you want and what size is going to fit comfortably without crowding out and over dominating the whole room.

You’ve got your color palette and décor set so now you can start to plan your furnishings, your desk, desk chair, storage cabinets, file space, bookshelves and of course if you have space, a guest seating area. These sounds like kids stuff but cut out the shapes and place them on your floor plan so you can visualize exactly how they will look. This will pay dividends when the furniture actually arrives and you know exactly where it’s going to go.

So now you’re ready to start making some purchases. Make a list of your essential buys first. Your desk, office chair, file storage or cabinet if it’s not integrated into your desk. Bookshelves or book cases. Do you need a printer stand or will your home printer sit on top of an existing piece of furniture? Lamps, an comfortable occasional chair if you have the space and you’re ready to go. Use the links on the left of this article to start browsing and make your choices. (remember your purchase is covered by a 100% no quibble, no questions guarantee)

So now you’re ready to start making some purchases. Make a list of your essential buys first. Your desk, office chair, file storage or cabinet if it’s not integrated into your desk.

And a note about home office chairs. They are complete and utter destroyers of carpet and wooden flooring. If you don’t taker precautions you’ll have a huge hole in your carpet and very ugly unsightly wear on your solid wood or laminate flooring. If you own the property you’re going to be very unhappy, It only happened to us once and we learned that lesson because the flooring cost a lot to replace and the wear was gradual, but before we knew it, it looked very bad and ruined the room. If you’re renting, and you don’t protect the floors you’ll have a very, very unhappy landlord!

The solution? Go grab yourself some felt furniture pads and an under chair floor protector

Setting Up Your Small Space Home Office.

[fsbProduct product_id=’2371′ align=’right’]As we said previously it’s absolutely vital to measure the room and decide exactly how much space you have, and just where you’d like your work area to be. Feng Shui, light and a view if you can possibly arrange it are all very important because if you can lift your head and look outside, it gives an illusion of space. One of the most popular solutions for small space living and working is a corner computer desk but as a long term working environment avoid it if you can. The last thing you need is to be doing is lifting your head from your work and staring at two walls converging into a corner!

Having said that a corner or L shaped desk can make an ideal home work space if you have to work in part of your existing living or sleeping area especially if you have an integrated L shaped or combined desk unit with hutch, storage and place to put your files.

Just make sure if you can it faces out into your room and has a window view if possible. The more integrated storage you have, the tidier you can keep your desk and make sure that everything has a place at the end of the day when you finished work.

Three of our favorite L shaped desks with hutches are…

Our number one pick with great reviews if you have the space is the Altra Benjamin U Shaped Desk With Hutch. This is an almost self contained home office work suite! We love it.

Slightly smaller, but just as versatile the Cabot L Shaped Desk And Hutch is a great choice

And the superb Monarch Reclaimed Look L Shaped Home Office Desk. This desk has printer space, storage drawers and hanging file storage.

Existing style and color scheme.

The final things to consider if you are fitting your home office into your existing living or sleeping area, especially if it’s a small space is that whatever new furniture you buy fits in with your current color scheme and decorative style. Are you white light and airy with a clean, modern contemporary look, loft style with bare brick and open wood and steel rafters or are you looking to fit a home office into a traditional room with cornices and wood paneling?

Browse through our extensive range of furniture styles and designs at the Home Office Furniture Outlet  and we will look forward to hearing from you. Please email us a picture once you have got your new furniture set up and we will feature it here on our customer page!

Whatever your current furnishing style, décor and color scheme we hope you have fun fitting out and of course enjoying working and creating in your new home office