10 Things To Consider When Planning A Home Office
Home offices come in many different shapes, sizes, and styles. There are important things to consider when planning your home office whether your workspace is in a converted garage, a purpose-built annex, a small bedroom, or a corner of another room. Some people spend over 35 hours-a-week in this space, so it needs to be distraction-free and comfortable.
The RoomSketcher App is a great app for planning a home office or study. You can try out different furniture layouts without moving the furniture around in real life, choose your desired wall color and plan shelving and storage for the room.
After much discussion in the RoomSketcher office, here are our 10 essential things to consider when planning, designing and maintaining your home office or study.
1. Selecting the Correct Room
If you are fortunate to have a number of rooms to choose from, make sure you select a room that will offer you enough space, light and privacy to allow you to work comfortably.
2. Enough Space to Move Around
It is important to have enough space to be comfortable when working. If you work on your own, make sure your space is big enough for you to move about, stand up and sit back from your desk.
If you work with colleagues or employees, make sure the room is big enough for all of you. There is nothing worse than having to push past your colleague every day to get to the coffee machine.
3. A Decent Desk and Comfortable Seat
Buying a decent desk and chair for your home office will always be worth every penny if it reduces back pain problems in the future. Make sure your desk is big enough to fit both your computer and anything else necessary to do your work.
4. Storage Space and Shelving
It is important to have enough shelves, filing cabinets, and cupboards for your files, books, papers, and stationery.
5. Somewhere to Hold Meetings
If you have clients or customers visit you during the day, comfortable seating to have sit-down meetings is essential.
Make sure you have a clean and tidy area to meet them and talk to them face to face. If space is limited, you can always hold meetings around the kitchen table or in the living room.
6. Lighting
Natural light is essential and it can be maximized by using mirrors and painting the walls with light colors. Make sure your computer screen isn’t affected by direct sunlight and pick a good lighting arrangement for working in the evenings.
7. Temperature
Being too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter is an unwelcome distraction from your work. Make sure you have a reliable way of heating and cooling the room when the temperatures fluctuate in the summer and winter.
Ideally, you want to have a window that you can open to let some fresh air in – if not, make sure you can open the door to another room with an open window.
8. Minimize Noise and Distractions
Your room or space should be tucked away in a quiet part of the house, out of the way from children or pets that might distract you.
9. Cleanliness
Always keep your home office clean and tidy. Spend the first 10/15 minutes of the day tidying your desk and vacuuming if necessary – it will always be worth it.
10. Personalize it
You are lucky enough to be in control of what your office space looks like, so make sure you add your own personal touches that will please you. Add one of your favorite paintings, colors or decorations that will brighten up your day.
Before you go ahead and set up your home office, we recommend you plan your office design, using an online tool like the RoomSketcher App.
You can get started for free, but to access the full product library (that includes plenty of office furniture), you will want to get a RoomSketcher subscription.
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