Home Offices

There are two interesting articles in today’s New York Times concerning home offices that are worth taking a look at. It’s a topic much on my mind these days as both my blog and design business are heating up. The first article, The Office, Housebroken, concerns the actual design of home offices. According to reporter, Julie Scelfo, high-end home offices are becoming a design niche:

“[A]ccording to data collected by the Dieringer Research Group, a marketing research company in Brookfield, Wis., more than 28 million Americans were working from home at least part time ‚Äî an increase of 10 percent from just the year before, and 40 percent from 2002. The American Home Furnishings Alliance reports that 7 in 10 Americans now have offices or designated workstations in their homes, a 112 percent increase since 2000. And a recent survey by the National Association of Home Builders found that home offices ranked as the fourth most important feature in a new upscale home, just ahead of security.”

Lee Unkrich (also shown above) works for Pixar and has a home office space designed around technology.

I can personally identify with the need for a real home office, having redesigned mine this past year. Now if I could just find the time to reorganize my sample library. It’s in a tiny bedroom in the back of the house – easy to ignore (except when I need to find something). Ah well, that’s what New Years Resolutions are for, right?

Alexander Cappello, a merchant banker, has a traditional, masculine space that a friend’s wife calls his testosterone room. How does he find his keys?

More and more people are finding it easier and/or more suitable to work from home, which is the focus of the second article, titled Home Office Life and Its Discontents. Ralph Gardner, Jr. writes the truth! Working from home, “requires strict self-discipline and an ability to tune out spouses, children and pets. For the more sociable or emotionally needy, it can feel like house arrest, especially if the phone hasn‚Äôt rung in a while.”

I say, “Amen to that.” I used to work in a “real” office. When I was at work I thought about work. Okay, I made personal phone calls and wrote the occasional grocery list. But I didn’t think about nipping downstairs to run a load of laundry. And I find it impossible not to answer personal emails and Superpokes from my friends on Facebook. God forbid someone sends me something from You-Tube. Can you resist clicking on those links? Be strong!

My home office. Nicely organized files and shelves are on the opposite wall – trust me.

I am determined to turn over a new leaf and return to the days when I was the most organized person I knew. How about you? Do you work from home? If so, is your office set in a corner of the family room, or do you have a professionally designed space? More importantly, how do you stay focused when you know it will only take two seconds to empty the dishwasher? Consider yourself Superpoked.

Photo credits: Peter DaSilva, Ethan Pines, Jennifer Mitchell