Our designers just installed this beautifully custom designed bookshelf and filing system in Plano, along with a custom desk, which sparked our interest in writing a post about what makes a home office both functional and beautiful.
We love the warmth, functionality and design that our custom storage and desk pieces brought to our client’s slate colored room. In addition to storage and a surface to work on, a home office needs:
- Comforts of home, functions of the office
- Concealed Storage
- An environment and design that allows for focus and productivity
“A cluttered desk is a cluttered mind”
- Avoid the unnecessary distraction that clutter, junk mail, and one-too-many places for the eye to rest can lead to.
Make sure to allow for the inevitable. Your office cannot ALWAYS look the way a staged photo could make it appear (this could be left unsaid!). Real life happens, and in your business success, we hope that you have many papers coming across your desk. That being said, make allowance for life’s clutter with designated storage. The custom storage on the back wall pictured above, allowed for that office to have a more sleek desk.
Escaping the fluorescent lighting of the corporate office is great! Take advantage of stylish and functional alternatives at home.
- Does your office have natural light? If so, emphasize it by placing your desk in an area that gets to soak up the sun! This will make you more alert and give you that much-needed Vitamin D (especially in the gloomy winter weeks).
- Bring in more lighting with lamps that aren’t too bright or too dim.
Create a space that inspires you. Design your home office in a way that emphasizes its purpose to make it both productive and inspiring.
- Emphasize the purpose of your home office as a workspace by not sacrificing functionality for style. Just as our plano designers placed key accessories or pieces of art in eye-catching spots, or how a tv is the center of a media room, qualify your home office for WORK by making your computer or other work device the main focus. This reminds your brain what the room is for!
What will inspire you to keep going when the going gets tough? How do you best “get in your zone?” This could be soothing colors like in the office pictured above, or even reminders of why you work (photos of family, travel mementos, or commemorations of professional successes!).
We hope that this post gets your wheels turning on how to improve the design of your existing home office or inspires you to think about what you would like in a space still to-be-designed.