Setting Up a Home office

Many people now prefer to work from home. Telecommunications and computer technology are now user-friendly and affordable enough to make off-site workers productive. Workers want to spend more time with their families and away from office politics, dismal corporate cubicles, and rush hour traffic. A home office has, therefore, become an essential space in many homes.

Home offices are no longer shunted to a corner of the basement, in the attic or inside a small closet. With more people working from home, the home office has become an important space in the largest home or the smallest apartment.

You do not really need a big budget for setting up a home office. Few people can afford to pay to have a professional space planner design an efficient home office space. You can create a good space for working at home without spending a fortune. Be innovative, discuss with your friends, your colleagues you are still friendly with and, above all, consult your spouse if you have one yet. Take a plunge from there. You will eventually end up feeling a great sense of achievement after turning some wasted or under-utilized space into an efficient stay-at-home office.

The task of finding space may not be so hard if you are lucky enough to have a separate spare room for your home office. But if you are not so lucky, you should still be able get a workable home office by making whatever space you may have. It could be a stair landing, an attic, a small closet, corner of a basement or an under-used living room. For increase in your efficiency, try to locate a space that can be dedicated to a home office area. You will then be able to work more professionally and without being disturbed.

You may find it tempting to just move a few pieces of home office furniture around either in your living area or in a bedroom for creating space for your home office. If you are serious about having your home office, you should be equally serious about the task of building it seriously, too. You should actually measure your space, create a floor plan - however small it might be - take measurements of your furniture, and think it through.

You would be saving money if you can do some of the work for setting up your home office. Do those work that you think you are capable of doing, painting the walls of your office, for example. After all, it is unlikely to be specious area. A fresh coat of paint will make the room look lively and cheerful.

Make a list of essential home office furniture, like a desk and a chair that you must have. The work surface should be spacious enough to accommodate your computer and its other components. Surf the Net and see what is on offer. Visit showrooms of dealers of home office furniture. Before making final purchases you must make sure that you would be buying only items that would fit into space of your computer office.