Making Your Home Office Work For You

Many people were enjoying the benefits and dealing with the downside of working from home long before social distancing became a common phrase in the American lexicon.

Knowing that you won’t have to fight your way through rush hour traffic is an awesome feeling, but you still need the persistence to complete the work you need to get done.

The coronavirus pandemic forced millions more to do their job from home. Some of them already had an ideal place to get down to business, while others had to be flexible and innovative in their efforts to stake a claim to a comfortable and at least reasonably private place to work in their house, condo or apartment.

At least one builder was offering its clients some viable options before COVID-19 began hogging the headlines.

“We’ve already built home offices into many of our plans, and some of our plans have more than one,” said Kimberly Metler, product design and drafting manager at Mungo Homes.

She pointed out that flexibility is the key. For example, adding French doors can turn a formal living room into a nicesized office. She added that most of Mungo’s 90 to 100 base plans offer an option of a bonus room either upstairs or over the garage, and that a sitting room off the master bedroom can also become an

An ideal home office is in a relatively spacious room located in as quiet a place in the house as possible, with both natural and artificial light, a door for privacy and maybe even a calming view of the backyard.

office — especially if one spouse already has a home office elsewhere in the house.

“We even have a handful of plans that have a third-floor option with bonus space,” she said. “There’s tons of flexibility built in, even if a room is not designated as an office. We generally try to incorporate some type of bonus space, from our smallest to our largest homes.”

Builder Jennifer Nettles of Epic Homes explained that an ideal home office is in a relatively spacious room located in as quiet a place in the house as possible, with both natural and artificial light, a door for privacy and maybe even a calming view of the backyard. She said a bonus room being used as an office can be as large as 300 square feet, while an office can be bedroom-sized as well — around 11 feet by 12 feet.

Nettles said many of her clients who require a home office are requesting recessed lighting or a ceiling fan with a light fixture. Some homeowners also want built-in desks, computer stations and bookshelves.

Metler pointed out that spaces designated as ‘organizational’ or ‘flex’ rooms typically near the kitchen can be anything from a craft room, homework space, or pocket office, which is more and more common.

She added that whenever she lays out a floor plan, she always imagines where furniture might be placed in a specific room.

“I’m going to consider where the doors and windows go to give our clients the opportunity to build bookcases if they want to,” she said.

You can have the quietest and most comfortable office in the world, but you probably aren’t going to do your job without the technology to connect you with the outside world. Matt Dosch, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Comporium, said those who work from home should be sure their internet provider offers symmetrical speeds — both uploading and downloading at 100 megabits per second, for example.

“If you’re passively surfing, most of the data is coming down. But if you’re in a Zoom conference call, now you’re sending just as much information as you are receiving. That consumes upload bandwidth,” he explained.

He said the location of your office is an important factor in determining the speed and reliability of your internet connection, and that common household appliances can interfere with your signal as well. The closer you are to the router, the better your service will be. If it’s not nearby, he pointed out that installing a device that repeats the router’s signal in your office will help solve that problem. u