Reimagining the Home Office

By Bruno Povejsil, studiobstyle guest blogger

As we leave the warm summer months behind, many of us that can work from home have probably committed to remote work for the foreseeable future, whether full-time or part-time. We already saw a boom in DIY home renovations over the spring and summer as homebound workers converted spaces to home offices, but now that many companies are continuing remote work policies into 2021, it’s a great time to consider another pass with a designer’s mindset. What are the trends and ideas you should work with for a fresh, modern home office?

This photoshoot with Iris Apfel shows off a gold-trimmed table, the “Dillon” by Hunter Douglas, in place of a traditional desk. It’s a trick you should consider for your own home office, especially if you need to share it with someone else, like a spouse or roommate. Since a table doesn’t have any enclosed sides like a desk does, it allows for more seating space, and you can generally get a larger surface to hold your papers and projects. 

In the spirit of further maximizing space, stylist Barbara Schmidt set this table in the center of the room, such that it wasn’t pressed against any walls. This created wide, walkable paths around the whole room, another boon to multiple-occupancy office spaces. The Dillon table has built-in storage units, making it especially well suited to this arrangement, but Barb considers it to always be a good idea to have as much room around your desk as possible. “You should make sure your desk or table is positioned to let you experience the full space of your office, instead of forcing you into staring at a wall.”

If you need more storage in your office, remember to look up. Adding shelves and building upwards will make the best possible use of limited space. Consider the photo above - it’s built as an old-school private library, complete with sliding ladders to access high shelves. It’s actually somewhat uncommon for these ladders to be functional and safe, but these have wide rungs for easy footing, and the shelves are wide, deep, and built into the architecture of the room. This structurally-minded design allows even the tightest-packed bookshelves to look more spacious, and accommodates larger sculptures and artworks than a quickly-installed bookcase. I can’t recommend that everyone build heavy-duty shelves into their walls, but consider how you can make your storage more architectural in supporting itself and your office as a whole.

Our other storage tip is to turn a closet, if you have one available, into an “office pantry,” which can hold your office supplies, filing cabinets, and other bulky but essential items without infringing on your work space. Again, this is a matter of making your architecture work for you and maximizing the space you can use to work, instead of letting clutter get in your way.

It’s important to not let your home office lose the sense of “home.” If you’re not on a call or meeting someone in person, there’s no shame in letting yourself relax a little while you work. Having a lounge chair or sofa in your office gives you a cozy place to write emails without fear of judgement(or a sore back), but staying in the workspace means you won’t worry about distractions from your home life.

Studiobstyle styled this home office for a Weathershield window ad, which used a miniature drone to film the interior space, a relatively new advancement in drone tech and filming. This space has natural light coming in from 3 sides of the room, centered around a large table, perfect for multiple people to work at. It’s a symmetrical arrangement, which is both comfortable and easy on the eyes. It also includes a pair of fiddlehead ficuses, which are overall excellent plants for interior design, as they are tall and provide great spots of color, and they don’t take up too much real estate because of their thin stems. Especially once the days get shorter and darker, it will be important to have natural light and some lively color and plants to keep your office bright and welcoming.

The process of designing a home office will be different for everyone depending on what space your house has available, as well as your personal preferred ratio of “home” and “office.” With these ideas in mind, however, you are prepared to plan and create your own perfect workspace!