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By Laura Jean Whitcomb
More than 50 million Americans work from home in
some capacity, according to BlueSuitMom.com. Of that
number, an estimated 13 million Americans work from
home full time.
It’s a hard number to quantify — even the 2000
Census had difficulty — since “working from home”
can mean a number of things: Self-employed small
business owner, telecommuter, consultant or
part-time employee. But the fact of the matter is
that more people are indeed working from home. A
survey by Builder Magazine found that 54 percent of
households have home offices and 70 percent of
households have home offices with personal
computers.
If you find yourself spending more time in a home
office, make sure you design it right.
Here are some basic considerations for setting up a
home office.
Location, Location, Location
There are quite a few spaces in your house that can
be turned into office space: A guest bedroom, a
playroom, even a walk-in closet. Retailer
Chase-Pitkin Home & Garden and the National Retail
Hardware Association (NRHA) suggest dividing a home
office into two or more spaces. For example, you may
have a niche under a stairway you can use for a desk
and a phone only. But just behind that niche might
be a closet where you can put a file cabinet, copy
machine and supplies.
There are quite a few spaces in your house that can
be turned into office space: A guest bedroom, a
playroom, even a walk-in closet.
Keep in mind two important considerations: Privacy
and access. Your home office should be in a location
where you can completely focus on your work — no
interruptions from family members, no noise from
children and away from distractions such as the
television, radio and ringing home phone.
Access might be an issue if clients will be visiting
you in your office. The space should be accessible
so a client doesn’t have to walk through the entire
house to get there (and you don’t have to clean up
every time you expect someone). If you can’t find
office space with a door nearby, you may want to
consider adding a room on the ground level with a
separate entrance for privacy.
The minute I walked into what would soon be my
family’s new home, I saw the room that would be the
office for Howling Beagle Communications, my
marketing and public relations firm (www.howling-beagle.com).
The master bedroom, located on the first floor, had
a full bathroom, a closet for storage space, natural
lighting and a door that closed it off from the rest
of the house. Since most client meetings are held
off site (I primarily use the office to write and
make phone calls), additional design work wasn’t
necessary. I only needed the services of an
electrician to install extra phone jacks and a cable
connection.
Building a Home Office
Peter Ericson, however, needed more than one room
for his growing business. When Ericson, owner of The
Complete Website (www.TheCompleteWebsite.com), first
moved his company to Grantham, N.H., he used an
extra bedroom and a loft in his Eastman condo as
work space. But with two employees, five contractors
and a growing client list, he knew that expansion
was in his future.
Plans for his family’s new house included a walk-out
basement with a separate entrance — a perfect space
to work closely with clients to develop a complete
e-strategy from Web design to e-mail marketing.
Ericson now has 1,000 square feet that, when
finished, can be used for an entry area, an office
with one or two desks, two storage closets (one
closet is large enough to be a second office) and a
third office with enough room to include a
conference table or sitting area to meet with
clients and co-workers.
If it looks like construction may be in your future,
here are a few considerations:
* When it comes time to resell the home, can it be
presented as an extra bedroom to potential buyers?
With the full bath in the basement, Ericson’s office
space can easily be converted to a family play area
or guest bedrooms by the new owners.
* To isolate your office equipment from home
appliances, install a dedicated separate circuit
with 20 amps of service. That way you don’t have to
worry about someone in the house running the
dishwasher and the microwave at the same time you’re
trying to make copies and print documents. (Consult
an electrician if you have questions.)
* Make way for telephone, fax and modem lines. You
might want a cable connection in the office area for
high-speed Internet service. “We’re wired to the
hilt,” says Ericson, noting that there are extra
Internet jacks and CAT5 wiring (a cable containing
four twisted pairs of wires, a total of eight wires
that could easily support four phones) in every
room.
* Set aside room for storage space, cabinets,
bookcases, files or a closet. The rule of thumb is
four-drawer file cabinet per person, per year.
Whether you convert a room or build a space, make
sure that it is indeed separate from the home so you
can write off any expenses. The IRS Tax Code states
that your use of the business part of your home must
be “exclusive, regular, for your trade or business.”
For more information refer to Publication 587
(Business Use of Your Home) at www.irs.gov.
Let the Light Shine In
One of the best office buildings I’ve seen is the
Centerratech Office Building at Centerra Resource
Park in Lebanon, N.H. Why? The natural lighting.
Windows on all three wings (and all three floors)
let natural light stream in, so much so that the
fluorescent ceiling lights are not even necessary.
With design by architects Metz, Thornton and Smith
of Lyme, N.H., and construction managed by
Trumbull-Nelson, this 58,000 square foot brick and
glass building offers a pleasing work environment as
well as addresses practical concerns such as energy
efficiency and long-term maintenance.
Lighting will be one of the most important elements
of your home office as well. There are two kinds of
lighting. Ambient lighting covers the entire area,
while task lighting is directed to a specific area.
How much you’ll need depends on the task, but
generally, the more visually demanding the task —
such as proofreading a magazine for errors before it
goes to press — the more lighting you’ll need.
Decide whether you want incandescent or fluorescent
lighting in your office. Fluorescent light is more
energy efficient than incandescent light, and the
bulbs last longer. But if they remind you of a bad
office experience where the fluorescent lights
flickering all day gave you a headache and an eye
twitch, incandescent light may be the better option.
Incandescent light is warmer, and can be directed
and controlled more easily.
What Goes in the Office?
This is the fun part — choosing the type of
furniture you want and where it goes. First identify
the office equipment you might need: Computer,
printer, fax machine, answering machine,
telephone/headset, copier, electronic organizer, to
name a few. Then consider what all this technology
will sit on — desk, printer table, file cabinet,
supply closet and bookshelves.
Now, how do you make all this stuff into a
functional office? The key will be to give yourself
enough space to work; don’t jam in tons of furniture
and equipment if you don’t need it. Make sure
everything is ergonomic and the things you use daily
— bookshelf, filing cabinet, phone — are within
reach. If you have enough space, add a reading chair
to provide a change of scene from the computer
monitor.
IKEA, a home furnishings retailer, offers a software
program that helps small business owners plan a home
office. You can drag and drop tables and chairs into
layouts, view them in 3-D, try different colors,
print your design, and, of course, you can even see
the total cost of your new IKEA office. Check it out
at www.ikea.com by typing in “IKEA 2005 Office
Planner” into their search tool. |
