A home office could provide you with a designated space to work from so that you can get into work mode and concentrate. But what if you don’t have a convenient spare room to convert into an office? There could still be ways to create an office space to work from. This guide explains more.
Why set up a home office?
Working from home is a lot cheaper for businesses than renting an office and often just as practical. Nowadays, you can conduct face-to-face meetings with clients on Zoom and collaborate with employees remotely using the cloud. There are even services like Physical Address that allow you to outsource a mailing address for your business mail and relay it to your home address. There are very few reasons to still rent office space.
For some people, working from home can be distracting. It may also be hard to stay motivated when working in an area that is usually used for enjoying downtime. For this reason, it can be worth designating a space in your home as an office so that you can mentally get into the zone and separate yourself from distractions.
What to do if you haven’t got a spare room?
Not everyone has a spare room available that they can turn into a home office. Fortunately, there are a few other ways to set up a home office.
Convert unused spaces
There may be spaces in your home that aren’t used as liveable rooms but that could be converted. These might include:
- Attic: An attic could make the perfect office space. You may need to conduct a fair amount of renovation work to make it suitable – this could include installing floorboards, adding insulation, installing lighting, installing electrical sockets and providing some heating. This guide at Houzz has some great tips for turning a loft into an office.
- Garage: A garage could also make a perfect home office. This is likely to be more accessible than an attic, however you may need to make a few of the same renovation such as adding electrics, installing heating and laying down a more comfortable flooring.
- Shed: You could even convert a shed into a home office. This could give you a work space away from the home so that you can truly distance yourself from home life. Many of the same renovations will be necessary such as upgrading the floor and adding electrics. Bear in mind that the cost of running electrics out to a shed could be more expensive.
Create an office corner
If your home is too small to have a separate office room, consider designating a section of another room as an office. This could be the corner or a living room or the corner of a bedroom where you may have space to put a desk (there are lots of corner desks that you can buy – including bespoke desks – that are great for fitting into these spaces).
Try to only use this corner of the room purely for work. If other people are sharing your home, try to use the room that is least regularly used (the living room may not always be the best option).
Consider a fold-away office
If your home is very tight for space, another solution could be a fold-away office. This could include a collapsible desk that you can pop up when you need to work and put away when you’re not working. By transforming the room from leisure mode to work mode, you may find it easier to get into the zone.
Featured image credit: Photo by Polina Kovaleva from Pexels
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