When working at home, having an office space set aside can make you feel more professional – even if you often work from your couch or coffee shop. While it should be conveniently laid out and have excellent ergonomics, can be trendy, glamorous, or high-tech as you like.
If you work from home, you likely have some sort of workspace set up. You may be dreaming of creating a better, more functional small space for yourself in order to be more productive.
In this article, we will share the best home office ideas to help you create a functional workspace.
Table of Contents
How Do You Create An Ideal Home Office?
To create your ideal home office, you first to ask yourself a few questions.
Start By Determining What’s Important To You
To create your ideal home office, you first need to determine what is most important to you. Do you need a quiet space where you can have meetings without hearing the kids? Do you need natural light for filming content?
Select Your Location
Now that you’ve determined what is important to you, you can figure out where is best to create your home office space. Your home office space doesn’t have to be large. You can create a very practical office in a small space!
Add Lighting
Having enough lighting can make you more productive. Make sure you have a central light fixture near your home office desk. If you need additional lighting options, you could add a floor lamp, table lamp, or desk lamp. You could also add task lighting to certain areas of your desk if that’s helpful for your line of work.
Find Your Office Furniture
Now it’s time to pick out your office furniture. You get to choose if you want a standing desk, a walking pad, a wooden desk, or anything you desire. It can be liberating to choose your own office furniture based on what you actually want!
Don’t forget an ergonomic office chair. having good support while you work can keep you comfortable and preserve your back.
Once you’ve determined the basics for your office furniture, you can then consider other functional and storage items like bookcases, cabinetry, desk organization, filing cabinets, etc.
Where Can You Put A Home Office If You Don’t Have A Designated Space?
If you don’t have a designated space or room for a home office, there are still many options for creating a home office space. Here are some ideas.
Create A Space In Your Living Room
If you are tight on space, consider adding a small desk area to your living room. This could be as simple as adding a desk and comfortable chair. Your office space doesn’t have to be fancy, it just has to be functional.
Use Your Dining Room
In a pinch, you could also set up a workspace at your dining table. Using your dining table as your DIY office space can make sense as long as you have a quiet environment to work in.
Convert A Closet
Do you have any closets that you aren’t using? You can take the doors off of a closet and add a small desk and office chair for a minimalist work area.
Add A Desk To Your Guest Room
Do you have a guest room? You could consider adding a working space there. If needed, you could reconfigure this room a bit and use a daybed instead of a typical bed for more space.
Convert Your Basement Into An Office
Can you turn your basement into a home office setup? Whether it’s simply adding a desk to your existing basement setup or converting an area or room, you may have a lot of options in your basement. We’ve even seen some inspiring home workspaces under stairs.
What Are The Pros And Cons Of A Home Office?
There can be both pros and cons of having a home office. If a home office isn’t right for you, a virtual office or a coworking space may be a better choice.
A virtual office is a place for collaboration among coworkers at the same company. Often this includes a physical mailing address, conference rooms, receptionist services, software, and office furniture.
A coworking space is created to accommodate people from different companies who come to work. Coworking spaces have conference rooms, quiet working spaces, and other tools for members to use.
If you struggle to work at home or your home environment isn’t working for you, a virtual office or coworking space may be a good fit for you.
Pros Of A Home Office
- Reduced expenses on commuting
- Less distraction than an office environment
- Time saved by not having to commute
- Ability to work on your own schedule
Cons Of A Home Office
- Home distractions (laundry, dishes, family members)
- Work-life balance can be challenging
- Self-discipline can be challenging
What Are The Key Things To Consider When Designing A Home Office?
When you are designing a modern home office, here are some key things to consider:
- Interior design
- Color palette
- Office decor and home decor. If you are working out of your living room, you will need to coordinate between your office decor and home decor.
- Lighting
- Functionality
How Can You Make A Smart Office Work For You?
Technology can be really helpful when creating a home office. If you are considering a smart office, you can make it work for you in many ways. Many simple tasks, from turning on lights to making coffee to regulating temperature, can be done from your phone or from a smart speaker. Smart plugs can allow you to control appliances like heaters and dehumidifiers that are not controlled by the internet.
First, consider the tasks you do on a daily basis. How can you do those tasks more efficiently and productively?
Once you determine the areas in which you could use smart office technology, you can consider allowing a smart office set-up to assist you.
6 Home Office Design Trends
Here are some home office design ideas and trends to get you inspired.
Accent Wall
If you have the space, you could consider an accent wall in your home office. This could be as simple as picking a fun paint color for a pop of color.
You could also be creative and add paneling or wooden dowels and paint them.
Gallery Wall
Another fun trend is creating a gallery wall. This could be photos of your family, pets, or even just images that you like.
If you choose to gather images that you like, you may want to stick to a color scheme so that the images tie together.
Ikea Desk Hack
If you’re looking for a more spacious desk, you could consider using a large Ikea desk. There are many different styles and options for turning Ikea desks into the desk of your dreams! As an added bonus, most Ikea desks are very inexpensive.
Built-Ins
Office built-ins are perfect for a small home office. Not only do they look amazing, they are also practical for storage! Built-ins also offer the perfect option for a built-in desk.
If you don’t have space for built-ins, you could also use bookshelves to create a similar look.
Open Shelving
Wall-mounted open shelving is a great small home office idea. It allows you storage or a way to display your favorite items.
Glam Decor
Glam decor options like zebra rugs, gold chandeliers, and feminine pops of pink can transform any room. You could keep it simple by adding one glam item, like a fuzzy swivel chair.
