Three Steps to Organizing a Home Work Space

If you work from home, pay your bills electronically, do some blogging or study at home, you could do with a dedicated work space!

Photo by Alisa Anton

Although we have gone through a few attempts to set up a home office in various places in our home, I have recently needed to think again about how to do this effectively. I started out with a desk in our bedroom - this was a temporary fix but it was not calming to have a reminder of work that needed to be done. Next I tried a small corner of the living room - but the area was too small and drafty and didn't work well as there was not much space to spread out papers. When we re-organised the living room I moved the printer to our outside art room/music studio. This area was initially a great place to work, but we found it was not easy to have to go outside in the late evenings to work there and it was too far away to always have a good internet connection. I was tending to set up on the coffee table or dining table each time I needed to do some work. Time for a re-think!

The following questions have helped me to re-assess our work space requirements:

1. What purposes will we using this space for? What will we need to fulfill those purposes?
We need our work space to accommodate our home admin, my blogging and homework for my daughter. To do these things we need a desk with drawers for homework supplies and lots of work surface space. We also need enough light to work at night and a good internet connection.

2. Who will be using the space? When will it be used?
The whole family will use it at different times of day from mornings until late evenings.

3. Where is the best location considering the above requirements?
I have decided to move our work space back to the living room as it is the largest room in the house and the place we spend most of our time as a family. I have chosen to use a long console table as a desk so it is not too out of place in our living room and gives plenty of room to spread out paperwork. There is a also a wall light above the console table so it can easily be used at night. We will try it out as a solution, but so far it is working out well.

What are your thoughts on creating a work space at home? Where have you located your work space? If you would like to read my previous post about creating a home office click here.

Creating a Small Home Office Area and Craft Room Combination

Even if it is a small space to perch with a laptop, a home office space is an essential part of the home.  As I mentioned in a previous post, our former working spot has been taken over by a bookcase so I needed to find a new space to work (besides the coffee table or dining room table).

Fortunately the art/music room has a relatively unused surface at the back which I think may make the perfect spot.  So we are currently sorting out the art/music room once again in order to accommodate a bit of a home office.

Photo by Tim Gouw

The office/craft area is a bit like a basement in its feel, so there are a few things we have needed to take into consideration:

• Storage - We have decided to work with open plan storage for all the art supplies so that the counter tops can be clear for work and the area will hopefully feel less cluttered. I took all the art supplies out of the room and sorted them into categories. We now have most of the items stored in clear plastic containers so that they will be easily visible on the shelves when we need them. I have also asked myself the question, “Why am I keeping this?” to help me get rid of things that are no longer being used as well as to group the supplies into “kits” for each activity. For example, all the card/tag making items are stored together in a plastic container and all the scrapbooking supplies are now in a portable bag.  We also moved a small drawer unit into the office area to house supplies there.
• Lighting- The room currently has a small single bulb fitting which is in a very high ceiling. I think some track lighting that can be angled towards the work surfaces would probably be more helpful. For the moment a higher wattage bulb has done the trick!
• Heating- We need to have a heater as the space is quite cold, particularly at night.
• Traffic flow/Seating Arrangements – We need to be able to seat two crafters side by side at the arts and craft surface as well as a third person in the home office area. I would also like to include a comfy reading chair for perusing our art inspiration books or just having a cup of tea.
• Art Display – I would like to include an area for displaying our creations. The long wall opposite the crafting surface has plenty of space for putting up art and craft projects. I am also thinking of some space above the crafting and office areas for inspirational quotes and pictures that we can see while we are at work.

So far our art room/home office is working out beautifully – mainly thanks to my husband sorting out our storage needs by putting up shelves.  Where do you like to do your home office work? How is your home office space working for you?