I have been working on my home office since I moved into this house. It has gone through a number of transformations to include several different wall colors, several different window coverings, several different desks and a multitude of other furniture pieces constantly in rotation. The flooring has gone from carpet to hardwood, to 3 area rugs to no area rugs and back again. Lighting has been varied to include random thrift store lamps I purchased on an impulse and, one of my better purchases, a pair of matching lucite lamps that I’m still using today. Artwork has been, in a word, “sad” however, I am proud of the brief stint my 2008 Stendig calendar spent gracing the walls. ( If I only now had space for a 4 foot by 3 foot calendar. I miss that thing. ) For the most part, try as I might, my office has generally been very haphazard and I have to say, tragically dull.
Now, that presents a problem. I cannot work in a space that is dull and lackluster. I just can’t. I try to but I inevitably end up leaving the room to work in the main living area because it’s a place I love to spend time in. It’s taken me a while to figure this out but I have found that in order for me to be the most fruitful at what I do, I must be surrounded by things that encourage my endeavors. My home office should incite inspiration and promote creativity. It should be clean and and free of unnecessary clutter. Ultimately, it should be a place where I want/enjoy/love to spend the majority of my working hours whether I am using the computer for various web and graphic design projects or teaching piano for several hours at a time. I have been working hard to achieve this goal and as of late I’ve been getting closer and closer to it.
The biggest dilemma I have had to deal with in the office is space planning. Trying to fit it all into what is essentially a 9 x 14 room hasn’t been too easy. More specifically, about 9 feet of the room is 10 feet wide, and the other 5 feet of the room is 9 feet wide. Meaning that there is a 9 foot section of the wall that is inset 1 foot. Does any of that make sense? (Well, if it does, it must be said that this 1 foot of inset wall is being used as a makeshift closet i.e. I hung floor to ceiling curtains on a ceiling track in front of a pair of bookcases. This is where about 95% of the office madness is kept hidden. The room’s closet is hidden in exactly the same way with the f2c [floor to ceiling] curtains. White curtains of course.)
With all of the junk kept out of sight, I could now focus on fixing the room’s layout. The old layout in the office was configured such that every piece of furniture was pushed up against the wall making for a big, empty, useless hole in the middle of the room. Furthermore, my desk was nowhere near a window so I was forced to sit facing away from the window with all it’s views and light and life and vibrancy and…..well, the opposite of a plain boring wall. Another problem with the space is that it became pretty much useless when the work day would end. There was no designated area for sitting, reading, listening to the piano, and generally enjoying the room, yet there was actual space going unused every day simply because I didn’t know what to do with it. I think that in an 1100 sq. ft. home, there just shouldn’t be the luxury of space “you don’t know what to do with.” If you live in a small home, you have the unique privilege of being forced to keep only what you absolutely need and love and no more. Life is simpler when you live in a space that doesn’t allow you to horde “stuff”. Oh believe me, I still horde. I am far from perfect and my sense of organization is…well, that will be another post. But I’m learning that having junk piling up around you because you continue to buy more and more things that you don’t have a place for, well, it can be downright suffocating. All that to say, once you have whittled your things down to only the best of the best, make use of them. If you’ve gotten rid of so much stuff that you free up an entire room that will go to waste, maybe you should be living in a smaller place. That’s my philosophy anyway. Regardless of the actual size of your home, you should maximize every square inch. Adapt to your home’s size or make it adapt to you, but either way, “Waste not want not,” people.
Once I determined that my office had to be more than just an office, I began imagining how I might section the room off into different zones or almost “mini-rooms” of usability.
I have a seating area for conversation or magazine reading, I have an office area for using the computer(laptop), and I have a studio area where the piano can be played. In addition to the seating area, I have positioned a bench in front of the closet to serve as a dressing area for when I am using the room to get ready in the morning. (My office has the big closet so I got dibs to use it for all my clothes, shoes, bags, etc. No one would know what disaster lurks behind the big white curtain. )
Office
I don’t need a large workspace. This means the 18″ x 38″ footprint of my vanity-turned-desk fits just about perfectly in the “office” area that takes up less-than 4 foot by 2.5 foot of the room’s actual space. (This includes, desk, desk chair, trash can, printer.)
Sitting Room/Library
The seating/reading area consumes a 3′ x 7′ area of space. I am using a set of acrylic nesting tables as a coffee table. (If you don’t own at least one set of these beauties, get some NOW.) They are invaluable as they take up absolutely no visual space and are extremely useful when you just have to have a place to put something on but don’t want the extra clutter.
Music Studio
The “studio” takes up 4.5′ x 4′ or 4.5′ x 2.5′ depending on whether the piano is in use or not.
And that’s it. The room is now as balanced as I believe it can be and still feels spacious for being so filled with furniture. The biggest advantage to the new layout is that I have views out the windows regardless of where I sit and my views are of a multitude of lovely, green trees.
Had I a larger house, each of these “mini-rooms” would probably have their own individual rooms. But I am not only making do with the space I have, I am learning to, as I said, adapt to the small space lifestyle. And I have to say, from someone who grew up in in homes between 2000 and 4000 sq. ft, I love it. Just wait until we have kids…I will probably go buck wild with delight and insanity trying to problem solve that space issue. (No lie. I look forward to it eventually.)
I thought about getting a Dwell subscription too, but since I picked up over 2 years worth of back issues for $5 at a garage sale, I figure I had better go through and exhaust those before I get any new issues. I also receive (as gifts) subscriptions to Cooking Light, Bon Appetit, and Southern living.
