Creating a home office is usually a matter of necessity; you are either bringing work home or running a business from home. So when you set about finding the space or converting a room it’s important to gauge how it will impact on your home life. For instance if you are thinking about converting a guest room, you need to ask yourself if you will need the whole room or can you zone an area in the room specifically for your office; effectively giving the room a dual purpose. If you need the whole room you need to ask yourself where guests will sleep. These are just some of the issues that may crop up.

If you want to save space it’s possible to buy a cupboard that opens up into a mini work space this allows you to use the room as an office but hide away everything privately and tidily and still retain the decorative design of a guest room. This Maple office hideaway from Argos is ideal as the natural wood colouring goes with most room decoration and is on sale at the moment with £20 discount. Click the image for more details.

Be Organised
A home office must be organised, functional and most importantly visually stimulating. If you are going to be using a room to work you should make it your own and design it with energy in mind.

The best way to add functionality and make a home office stimulating is to provide good lighting. As we all know natural light in the home is a good thing but sometimes too much in an office can be bad, especially if you are getting sun glare on your pc screen. The best way to combat this problem is to install Venetian blinds this way you can control the amount of light you let in. Other than natural light task and general lighting is the most effective in a home office environment.

You can install uplighters with dimmer switches so you can control the amount of light which a non glare alternative to ceiling mounted lights. The main source of task light in home office should be a desktop lamp. The lamp should be adjustable and in keeping with the style of the rest of the room.

Flooring in a home office should be practical and with so many electrical appliances in habiting the home office of today it’s probably a good idea to go with laminate or wood flooring these surfaces are hard wearing and they are also easier to keep clean. Unless you are building an external or basement home office, I would avoid using tiles or rubber flooring as this might limit your market should you want to sell in the future. Check out this article Flooring in the home for more information.

When you come to decorate the space you can do whatever you want. I suggest you go for something that is light and breezy and use calming colours such as shades of green or beige. If you are zoning an area for working in you can paint a wall a different more vibrant colours such as orange, lemon and lime to generate some energy.

You may want to put up an office in the Garden B&Q have a great selection although quite pricey it’s a great way to add an office to your home without having to move or extend, so it is still probably the cheaper option. Check out these garden offices at the Padzo Shop to get an idea of prices.

Related posts:

1. Home Lighting Part 2
2. I want to design my home, where do I start?
3. Types of lighting in the home
4. How to make a room look bigger
5. Flooring your home