Working in isolation
Experts offer tips for making home feel like the office
My daily commute to work is a long one, and on days with especially bad traffic, I find myself fantasizing about working from home: imagine the luxury of getting two hours of my life back five days a week. I could read a book or learn to bake bread, clean up my yard or even clean up my house with all of that extra time.
The novel coronavirus made it a reality — at least for a while — when employers everywhere urged us to work from home. Like my co-workers, I packed up my work laptop, some reporter’s notebooks and trudged to my upstairs den.
This pandemic has landed smack dab in the middle of a major interior design trend: the increasing importance of the home office. Larger homes have long had a study or home office or at least a flex room a homeowner could choose to decorate as an office — showy places with custom-made desks and high-end chairs, fancy lighting and beautiful rugs.
Lately, though, home offices have taken a different turn as one or more people in the home telecommute full time and each needs a space that’s functional for them.
That’s how I found myself last week, trying to adapt a room that my husband used when he was a manufacturer’s rep. In the time since he retired, the room has become a catchall for old exercise equipment, furniture we no longer use and other things that gather dust.
After clearing out as much clutter as I could, I realized that if I was going to be as productive at home as I am at the office — which is key — I would need to do more than get rid of junk. I needed to create a workspace that suits my needs.
To sort out the details, I sought advice from experts: Jayne Edison, president and CEO at Office Furniture Innovations; Leslie Carothers, founder and principal of Savour Partnership and The Kaleidoscope Partnership; Veronica Solomon of Casa Vilora Interiors; and Pamela O’Brien of Pamela Hope Designs.
“Especially now, during this time of high anxiety, you want a home office that says ‘come to work’ because it’s a calm, safe place. That’s very important,” Edison said. “Right now, most people are just patching it together, right?”
O’Brien said this experience will likely drive more work-from-home days.
“We didn’t plan on this, but more and more we’ll work from home. In Houston, how many rain days and flood days do we have?” she said. “There’s an awful lot we can do remotely.”
Internal drive
The first thing to deal with is an intangible: your own internal drive and focus. If you want to be be able to work from home once in a while after this is all over, you have to be able to get things done — that’s a no-brainer.
If home has too many distractions — a spouse, kids and/or pets and the noise they all make — find a way to isolate yourself in a room with doors or at least set parameters for how much noise and activity can go on while you’re trying to earn a living. If they can’t turn the TV down, try using noise-softening earplugs.
Start each day with a to-do list and a schedule with regular breaks so others in the household will know you’re available only during those breaks.
Teleconferencing
FaceTime, Skype or Zoom video calls are the proof of life for at-home workers. When bosses, colleagues or customers call or email, quick replies let them know you’re there, but video calls establish your professional presence.
When it’s time for a daily check-in with the bosses or a video call to talk about a project, take it seriously. Even if you work in your pajamas part of the day, brush your hair, wash your face and put on some real clothes — at least from the waist up.
Elevate your laptop on a couple of books so its camera is aimed at your face — not at your chin or neck. A lamp or other light source should be behind your computer, not at your back or even in the camera frame. Make sure your background is clean and clutter free. Your co-workers and clients don’t want to know how messy your home really is.
The basics
If you’re working from home for an afternoon or a day, you can likely work from your dining room table and be fine. But long term? You need more.
Carothers, who has worked from home for 18 years and now uses video conferencing to communicate with a business partner who lives in Paris, said that a designated office or workspace helps her separate work from life. Making it functional and beautiful adds value to her workday.
Solomon and O’Brien both said they first talk to home design clients about their needs. Who will work from home, full time or part time? Will children need desks for homework, too?
For the most part, it’s the adults who need the space, but what they need today isn’t what they would have needed even a decade ago.
The hulking executive desk has given way to a sleeker writing-style desk that can accommodate a laptop or a monitor or two. Homes built with offices in mind still are created with at least a wall of built-in cabinets, because even in our wireless, paperless world, everyone still needs cords for power and having a printer is important, even if you shut it behind cabinet doors or in a credenza.
If you will routinely have things to spread out — court documents, floor plans or other paperwork — you might also need a work table.
Sit or stand?
One of the most important elements is your office chair, because sitting in a bad chair for hours at a time — even with occasional breaks — can cause chronic pain.
Office desks are usually 28 to 30 inches tall, so make sure your chair is adjustable so that whether you’re 5-feet-4-inches tall or you’re 6 feet tall you can put yourself at the right height so your arms are level with the desktop when they’re bent in a 90-degree angle for typing.
“I have some clients who want chairs on wheels that can move around, but others want a regular, dining-room-type chair,” Solomon said. “I prefer regular office chairs if a client will spend a lot of time there, and it’s not hard to find nice ones, in white leather or caramel leather.”
Edison, who’s been in the furniture business for many years, said the office furniture world is turning “resi-mercial.” In other words, what we use at work is looking a lot more like what we use at home.
“What you’re finding is a lot of people who get their home built with help from an interior designer are now saying ‘we want you to do our office, our medical, dental or law firm,’ ” Edison said. “They don’t want the starched old office anymore.
They want something fresh and new and more resi-merical.”
Some people still sit in a chair at a desk, but Edison noted many people opt for standing desks, or desks that hover over a treadmill so you can exercise and work at the same time. Her mantra: Sitting is the new smoking.
Edison joked that millenials are easy to please at work — they’ll sit anywhere, even on the floor. She worries, though, about people who simply go to a big box store and buy the most inexpensive chair without sitting on it or evaluating if it’s adaptable to their height and their needs.
Let some light in
One last thing: find a window. Edison, O’Brien, Solomon and Carothers all said having natural light supplemented by other lighting is essential. Natural light is nature’s antidepressant — don’t underestimate its value.
Beyond that, you’ll likely need overhead lighting plus a table lamp, also known as task lighting, using bulbs that are at least 3,000 Kelvin.
“Lighting can be a weak spot,” O’Brien said. “The most glamorous thing to do is a hanging fixture plus recessed lighting, but that’s not great light for working. Buy a couple of very good, flexible desktop lamps, maybe with articulating arms you can twist and turn where you need it.”