‘Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it’s home to work we go,” as the seven dwarfs might sing these days, with figures from the Office for National Statistics showing that about a third of us work from home at least once a week.
Weekday footfall in central London is still only half what it was before the pandemic, according to the charity Centre for Cities, and 77 per cent of remote workers say they’re more productive when working from home. And now, thanks to Omicron, we have plan B and have been ordered to work from home again from next week.
The great joy of working from home is that it is home. You don’t need to settle for bland decor. This is a working space in your home and, as long as it functions for you, it can, and should, look like your home. But while it’s important that the decor inspires you, it’s also time to make your home office fit for purpose. At the start of “all this” we might have been content to camp by the coffee table or hot-desk around the house, but the time has come to sort out something more permanent.
So, first up, it will come as no surprise to know that the key is still location. Where in your home are you going to work? Before the pandemic you might have set up a pretty chair and a small desk/dressing table in the corner of a room that didn’t take up too much space. That might have been fine for a spot of weekend admin and your annual taxes, but it quickly became apparent that it was no good for a full working day.
For those of us with a so-called spare room the situation was often no better there. The reason it’s “spare” is usually because it’s basically the worst room in the house; the bedroom that no one else wants because it’s small. Or dark. Or draughty. Or has a low ceiling. Or all of the above. So what makes you think you are going to spend eight hours a day in there being productive and creative and busy?
Advertisement
At best you can make this into a really useful office storage area — set up the printer, the paperwork and files, or whatever else you need, and admit that you are going to spend most of the time at the kitchen table because it’s the largest, lightest space, is probably the most expensive room in the house and possibly the one with the best view.
If you intend to work from home long-term you need to ask yourself a few key questions. Do you work better in a buzzy central space or do you need peace and quiet? Do you need to attend lots of meetings (on the phone or via Zoom) or are you mainly working solo? Do you need a large desktop computer with access to a printer or can you work on a laptop? Finally, do you need to work a traditional nine-to-five day or can you work at night when it’s quieter? Answering those questions should rule out some spaces straight away and leave you to focus on the rest.
Donald Rattner, in his book My Creative Space: How to Design Your Home to Stimulate Ideas and Spark Innovation, says that surveys show that the traditional office ranks towards the bottom of the list of places where people gain creative insights. Instead, according to the data, it’s far more likely that you’ll be at home or doing something associated with residential life during moments of illumination. The more you can condition your home and habits to exploit this circumstance, the more you stand to benefit, he says.
He acknowledges that putting your desk by a window for natural light is best, but suggests that if that’s not possible, putting a picture over your desk of an outside space that inspires you is the next best thing. A landscape will allow you to send your gaze into the middle distance and rest your eyes, which is key when your work is screen-based.
Picking the right colour for your walls is another important aspect. Take the time to think not only about colours you love, but how they make you feel. I work best in tonal shades, so while they can be deep and dark, the colour palette must be limited. My home office has deep red panelling with a warm cream shade on the top half of the walls and over the ceiling. The layered rugs are a mix of vintage Persian and black and white Berber style.
Advertisement
You may find that a mix of high-contrast colours and clashing patterns make you feel energised and in a better mood to tackle the working day. Think about what suits you — after all, the point is that in this office you can please yourself. We all know about the importance of plants to detoxify the air and bring the outdoors in, and this is another key aspect of dressing a workspace. If the budget runs to a bunch of fresh flowers on the desk, do it.
Once you have the basic decor sorted it’s time to look at the equipment. At the very least it’s time to invest in a proper office chair to support your back. Emma Morley, the founder of Trifle Creative who pivoted from designing commercial spaces to home offices at the start of the pandemic, says that buying a proper chair is the single most important step you can take and is only half-joking when she says that she spent seven years working on a kitchen chair so she could pay for seven years of osteopathy.
“Office chairs have proper lumbar support and a hard dining chair doesn’t,” she says. “The addition of wheels also means that you will automatically move around, stretch your legs and change your position, and a swivel chair allows your hips to flex, which is crucial. In short, fidgeting is good.” If you spend no more than three hours a day at a desk you can get away with a standard kitchen chair, she says, but more than that you must invest.
Hiding the tech is another important part of creating an office that looks and feels like part of your home. Invest in a wireless router, printer, keyboard and mouse, and tape any visible wires to the underside of your desk and down one leg to stop them trailing messily.
The desk itself may be dictated by available space and personal preference, but if it is in a corner of a room used for other purposes there are ways to make it blend in. Andrew Griffiths of the boutique interior design studio A New Day suggests a built-in desk painted to match the wall behind so it disappears. Interior Fox, another design studio, created a desk in an alcove with a door that pulls across so you can hide it when the working day is over.
Advertisement
Creating a desk from essentially a wide shelf (so that a chair can tuck underneath) and adding shelves above for lights and storage can integrate a desk into a kitchen or sitting-room alcove. And never forget the transformative powers of paint to zone a space. Use a darker version of the rest of the room around the working space, or make sure the desk and chair are separated by a rug. In a larger room a set of bookshelves can cordon off a working corner.
So now you’re all set. The only issue is how many working spaces do you need? Because, after several years of WFH with my husband, the one thing we have learnt is that he likes music and I like silence. And so we work at opposite ends of the house and meet for lunch.
Kate Watson-Smyth’s online interiors course How to Be Mad About Your House is available on createacademy.com
