Home Office Design Ideas that Work

Looking for ideas for your home office design? Check out the suggestions listed in this article to find concepts that are not only aesthetically pleasing but also perfectly practical.

There are numerous articles to be found online that feature interesting and innovative home office design ideas. But, not all of them are practical and some could quite fairly be described as outlandish or extreme. If you work from home the following tips, which are focused on practical and inexpensive ideas, may come in handy.

Room dividers can make all the difference. If you have a limited amount of space with which to work, consider using temporary dividers to create the illusion of a separate room. Quite apart from the practical benefits of being able to separate your work from your leisure time, mentally it is easier to cope with working at home when there is a clear delineation between the two areas of your life.

Offsite assistance. To avoid cluttering up your home office with complicated business telephony equipment, consider taking advantage of office rentals or co-working spaces. There are many inexpensive packages available and in addition to keeping your home environment free from clutter.

Light color schemes. Continuing with the theme of making the most of small spaces, as so many small business owners have to contend with this issue when working from home, we move onto colors. Whether you have a vast amount of experience in the field of interior design or are only now starting to learn the basics, you are probably aware that light colors can create a more spacious feel when decorating small rooms. You can use this to your advantage when creating a home office by using creams and off-white colors wherever possible.

Effective layouts. When you are thinking about where to position your desk and where to put your printer and fax machine, consider how you work on a daily basis and make sure that it is easy to move from one to the other without having to squeeze through small spaces or negotiate a tangle of electrical cables. When choosing a layout for large offices, it is important that different groups of people can work together easily. However when designing your home office you need only consider how you like to work when alone. As long as you take account of all your needs and make sure that they are addressed, what other people may think is of little importance.

Lighting. Residential properties usually feature lighting that is more subtle than your average office space. This is because homes are places where people relax whereas offices are places where the ability to focus clearly on complicated tasks for hours at a time is more important than the ability to relax. What this means to small business owners who choose to work from home is that the room they use as an office will probably be inappropriately lit. It is a good idea to rectify this problem and install strip lighting that makes it easier to study printed material without straining one’s eyes if you plan on working from home.

As you can see, there are a number of things to consider when working from home. In addition to the points mentioned above, you may also wish to consider what effect background noise may have on your ability to concentrate in a home office and take steps to isolate yourself from sounds that may be disruptive. Whether soundproofing is necessary will depend on the extent of the problem, if indeed there is one.

About the author:
Established in 1989, Regus is the largest global provider of office and business solutions.

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