Home Office Design: 3 Tips on
Choosing the Right Furniture
Whether we love it or hate it, we spend much of our day working. We all know what it’s like to be stuck at the office for endless hours. A situation only made worse if we have to work in a poorly designed office space that does nothing to help our productivity. The lighting is less than ideal, the desk doesn’t fit our height, and let’s not even get started on uncomfortable chairs. Still, if you’re reading this article, you did it! You’ve either started your own business, a side-hustle or persuaded your boss to let you work from home.
Now you can design your own office and make it just right. But how? Maybe at first you were excited, but now you’re stressed out. You’ve never designed an office space before, and you don’t want to make decisions you’ll later regret. We’ll we’re here to help you out with a list of tips on choosing the right furniture for your home office.
Tip #1: Plan Ahead
This one is rather obvious because it’s valid for pretty much any endeavor. Don’t just start looking for furniture online and pick things that look good. It is indeed much faster, but you won’t be happy with the result. The goal here is to create the perfect home office - a place where you can actually enjoy working.
What’s Your Budget?
The next aspect you should consider is how much you can afford to spend on furniture right now. Keep in mind that you’ll also need to buy office equipment like a computer, one or several monitors, printer, paper shredder, etc. – it mostly depends on what your job is. You also want to consider what your future needs will be, so if you’re on a tight budget right now, it’s better to get just a few pieces and buy the others when you can afford to than opt for cheap furniture that you’ll have to replace.
Make a list of your most basic needs and think about how you plan on using the office. For example, if you work as a consultant, you may need space to meet with clients and locking file cabinets to keep sensitive documents safe.
Once you’ve decided on a budget and made a list of essential pieces, you can start browsing online stores. Since everything is just a few clicks away, take your time and look for special offers, discounts, or coupons like Costway coupons. Don’t forget to check the measurements of each piece and use your diagram to make sure everything fits.
Measure Your Home Office Space
The first logical step is to measure the room you intend to turn into a home office. Many people make the mistake of overestimating how much space they have. The room will look a lot bigger when it’s empty. Since they haven’t measured it, they also tend to buy furniture pieces that are too large to fit properly, and they end up with a cramped, uncomfortable home office.
We recommend that before you do any browsing on online stores, you make a diagram of your future home office. Here you can account for measurements as well as furniture placement. Once you do start looking for pieces, you’ll know what fits and what doesn’t.
What’s Your Budget?
The next aspect you should consider is how much you can afford to spend on furniture right now. Keep in mind that you’ll also need to buy office equipment like a computer, one or several monitors, printer, paper shredder, etc. – it mostly depends on what your job is. You also want to consider what your future needs will be, so if you’re on a tight budget right now, it’s better to get just a few pieces and buy the others when you can afford to than opt for cheap furniture that you’ll have to replace.
Make a list of your most basic needs and think about how you plan on using the office. For example, if you work as a consultant, you may need space to meet with clients and locking file cabinets to keep sensitive documents safe.
Another factor is making sure your home office is operating as efficiently as possible - this guide to energy savings will help.
Once you’ve decided on a budget and made a list of essential pieces, you can start browsing online stores. Since everything is just a few clicks away, take your time and look for special offers, discounts, or coupons like Costway coupons. Don’t forget to check the measurements of each piece and use your diagram to make sure everything fits.
Tip #2: Choose Furniture that’s Functional
Our minds tend to set beauty above functionality. We browse through design magazines, and we see pictures of beautifully decorated rooms. Then we think we’d be so happy if we had a vintage desk just like that one, with a dining room chair, elegant desk lamp, and lots of brightly colored art on the walls.
That might look inspiring or a few seconds, but imagine spending 40 or 50 hours there every week. The bright colors on the walls would start to hurt your eyes, the vintage desk doesn’t really go with your office equipment and that chair is giving you back pain. You’re back where you started. In a poorly designed office that doesn’t suit your needs. This is why you should place functionality at the top of your priority list.
Furniture That Fits You
Comfortable furniture needs to “fit” your body. Whether you’re tall or short, since this is your office and you can design it however you like, you’ll want to select furniture pieces that suit you. For example, a desk’s functionality shouldn’t be measured only in terms of how many files you can store in it, but also how comfortable it is to use it. You can even splurge on a motorized standing desk so you can alternate between sitting and standing.
The Right Chair
If you can only splurge on one piece, it should be your chair. Get a chair that’s comfortable above all else. Many of the elegant office chairs we see in catalogs are a lot less comfortable than you might think. When choosing a chair, you want it to, first of all, offer sufficient seat depth and width, as well as lumbar support. You will be sitting on it for many hours, and you don’t want it to distract you from your work. You’ll also want your chair to have adjustable armrests and easy to operate adjustment control. Lastly, the materials used should be breathable.
Tip #3: Aesthetics
As much as we went on about how functionality is more important than aesthetics, this doesn’t mean aesthetics don’t matter at all. Having a nice-looking office will put you in a better mood and make you more productive. If you have to spend so much of your day in an office that’s perfectly comfortable but that looks drab and uninspiring, you’ll find yourself making up excuses to go elsewhere. And remember that this is your home office, so all your home entertainment is just a few feet away.
Having an aesthetically appealing office is particularly important if you receive clients there. The way your office looks also reflects on your level of professionalism. It needs to look like you put some effort into it. It should follow a consistent color palette, and the separate pieces should match in terms of style.