An Office in Your Home
If you have a computer in your home, you probably have a home office. It may be very basic: a computer and printer on a folding table, some old grocery cartons for filing. You may not need anything more than this. In fact, if this works well for you, stop reading. There is nothing in the rest of this article that will interest you at all.
If your needs are a little more demanding, then you might consider upgrading your existing arrangement. How much home office you need depends on what you do with it.
We can identify four basic types of home office which may be mixed and matched and combined in any number of ways.
Work office: If you work at home, either for your employer or because you are self-employed, you will often need a very functional office with lots of computer capabilities, broadband connectivity and ample storage for papers and files. If clients visit you in your office, a separate entrance is often a necessity — and some zoning regulations require it (others prohibit it — Ah, the zany world of zoning.)
Household management office: This is the household administration, bill-paying and investment management center. It usually needs reasonable computer capability and connectivity and some storage for household records.
Homework center: There may be one of these shared by all children or one for each child. It is not uncommon today to see a small homework center in each child's bedroom.
Kitchen planning area: This is actually a variation on the management office, but this office is devoted to meal preparation planning, grocery shopping and recipe storage.
Over 50 million Americans currently work at least part time from their homes, and millions more have created work stations for paying bills, tracking finances and investment finances and investments, pursuing hobbies, and e-mailing family and friends. Homework centers with considerable computer power are becoming more common as they become more necessary. Many school programs now assume a child has access to a home computer.
Planning for a Home Office
Most of our homes were not designed with a home office in mind. Even today, except in very up-scale housing, it is unusual to see a space specifically set aside as office space. The typical plan shows one room labeled "Guest Room/Office", but a close examination of the plan shows no special provisions for office space such as heavied-up electrical service — it's just a label.Finding Space
A functional home office in a closet by TGO.
So, if we decide on a home office, it's typically a matter of scratching out some space in another room — a corner of the room, space underneath a stairway, or a little-used closet (is there such a thing?) can be converted to compact workspace. In a pinch, a computer armoire that opens to reveal a home office, and closes to hide it out of sight behind attractive cabinet doors can be turn a corner of any room into a very compact office. If you have study, den or unused bedroom, then the space problem is easier, but not completely solved because these rooms are usually not configured as offices and need to be adapted.
With careful planning you may even be able to borrow temporary space for your home office. For example, a small office tucked into a corner of the dining room may allow you to use the dining room table as additional working surface during the day, and back to a dining table in the evening. In a kitchen, the kitchen countertops may be used the same way.
The Minimum Home Office
A neat, compact office under the stairs. Photo courtesy AristoKraft.
Fortunately, home office spaces do not have to be big to be workable. Thanks to the personal computer, it's possible to create an effective work center in just a few square feet. The minimum work surface should be 60" wide and 30-32" inches deep: about the size of a typical office desk. You will need ten square feet of uninterrupted floor space in front of the desk to get you in and out of your chair. If you plan for filing cabinets, you will need 3' of drawer pullout space in front of the cabinets. You will need ample electrical power. You may want to install receptacles at desk level so you
Wall cabinets over the work surface provide accessible storage for supplies. This elegant office assembled from Wellborn cabinets.
don't have to route power cords around your work surface or have a tangle of cords at your feet.
Use the wall space above your main work surface for shelves or better yet, cabinets that hold supplies and reference materials and the space below it for filing. If you want separation between your work area and the rest of the house, consider a folding screen, a freestanding bookshelf, or even big potted plants -- all of which can make attractive visual barriers.
The "Circle of Reach" Rule
In planning a home office , always keep in mind the "circle of reach" rule: Put all materials and equipment that are immediately necessary to your work needs within easy reach of your work chair. Find nearby locations for other materials and equipment you need less often.
Making the Most of Compact Workspace
If workspace is tight, there are a few tricks to getting more out of it.
A few years ago a frequent recommendation was to use a laptop rather than a desktop computer to save desk space. That was primarily because a laptop, though less powerful than a typical desktop computer, was not tied to a giant video monitor. With the advent of reasonably priced flat screen monitors, that concern has largely gone away. However, if you need both a laptop and a desktop, consider a laptop and a docking station instead.
Free up some valuable desk space by installing a wall-mounted telephone.
Put your keyboard in a slide-out tray under the desk surface. This is a better height for a keyboard, and gets it off the desktop. When not in use, just push it closed.
Consider rollaway file cabinets. When you are working with the contents of a cabinet, pull it up to the desk. When you are done, park it back where it came from — even in another room if that's the space you have for file storage.
You can also locate office machines (printers, faxes, copy machines) in another room. The is common in commercial offices where these machines are often shared among several users. Cable routing may require professional help, but if you have a crawlspace or basement beneath, or an attic over your office space, cabling is not typically a major problem. Or just go wireless and avoid the problem altogether.
Other Features to Think About
Some other things to consider in planning your home office are its ties to the rest of the house and the rest of the world.
Phone lines: How many do you need? The computer, fax machine and handset all need to be connect to the telephone. Is one line going to be enough? Most employment-related home office need separate lines for each. However, if the fax is not critical to your work, a line shared by the fax and handset is a workable compromise. Also, if you have DSL service, all of these machines and your conversations may be able to share the one DSL line. Ask your local telephone provider.
Electrical service: How much power will you need in the room, and will you need an extra circuit? All of the typical office machines need power, some need a lot of power — your laser printer, for example. You will almost always need at least one extra circuit, so while you are at it, make it a heavy-duty 20 amp. circuit connected to an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) located next to the service panel. That way loss of power won't destroy the last four hours of work you have not saved yet, and the bulky UPS box is not underfoot.
Separate entrance: If your office is where you do your work and meet clients, unless you want them tramping in and out of your living areas, consider a separate entrance. If there is a window in the proposed office space that is at least 32" wide, a separate entrance is fairly easy to construct. Be careful about local zoning requirements, however. In some places such an entrance in a residential area is prohibited. But if allowed, a separate entrance makes a stronger case to the IRS for the tax deductibility of your home office (See the sidebar at right).
Heating and Air Conditioning: If the only room in your house used during the day is your office, why heat or cool the rest of the house too? Separate heating, cooling and ventilation for your office may be an investment that pays off in utility savings in a very short time. It also helps keep the odors of cooking cabbage out of your office on kielbasa night.
Privacy: Do you need privacy for your work, or do you need to keep an eye on the kids at the same time? Such factors as these determine how the office relates to the rest of the house; or how much electronic monitoring we install.
Wired or Wireless: A full-scale business home office used to require a lot of wiring for computers, Internet connections, and a local area network. Wired connections are no longer required now that low-cost reliable wireless systems are everywhere on the market. Our recommendation today is usually to go wireless unless the category 5 wiring already exists.
NetWorking: Not just for big commercial offices any longer, home networking that allows several computers to share peripheral devices such as a printer, scanner and high-speed Internet connection is almost required in a home with two or more computers. Typically the cost of a wireless network is quite a bit less than equipping each computer with the required peripheral equipment, and much more flexible. The ability to share hard-disk space means that essential business, financial and investment records can be safely backed up to another computer in case your main office system dies. (This has been known to happen — seriously.) Special software can also be used to monitor what the children are looking at on their computer. This isn't spying, it's exercising parental guidance. OK, it is spying, but that's what we're supposed to do. It may also be a good idea to keep track of what they're printing on the one main network printer.