Business Beat: Create Your Dream Home Office

As a home business owner, you need work space, a home office befitting your goals and dreams. Just as you take great pains planning out business moves, take as much care designing your home office.

Entrepreneurs often start businesses with misguided impressions. The new home worker envisions that he'll spend less time behind a desk and more time working on his laptop, sipping coffee on his deck, nestled among heavy willows and towering oak trees, while the fragrant scents of lilac and hyacinth waft from the garden below.

With every misguided notion, there's a bit of reality, so certainly enjoy the fragrant flowers whenever you can. The majority of time; however, you'll spend working in your home office, laboring under deadlines while fending off one interruption after another. You'll be doing many of the tasks you did as someone else's employee, but you'll be doing it in a better environment if you plan correctly. It's all up to you.

People with realistic ideas about working at home recognize that they'll be spending lots of hours in that space, much like they did when they worked outside the home. They plan accordingly to make the space the best it can be: functional and peaceful, as opposed to sterile and non-functioning. When I built my first home, I spent as much time designing the office space as I did the rest of the house just because it had to have function, be child friendly (a reason I wanted to work at home) and an ambiance that inspired creativity. Your family life will play a huge role in designing the ideal home office.

New Home Office Worker: Know Thyself. Most commercial spaces (cubicles) are square, non-descript and totally non-functional for the typical employee, because there is no such thing as a typical employee! Aside from the fact that they you've shared cubicle spaces, how much are you like every other cubicle worker around you? Nonetheless, workers spend the bulk of the day in identical spaces, regardless of their needs or job descriptions. If you decided to work at home to spend time with your children, you will design an office to reflect that. If you want to exercise in the middle of the day to clear the cobwebs out of your head, a treadmill may be part of your home office needs. Before you begin to design, make a list of reasons you want to work at home.

Start with Dreams. Clip out copies of office spaces you like from magazines, even if you're not sure why. Don't think practical, and don't censor at this point. It's all about brainstorming at this point. As you design your home office, consider all the things that make you unique, and make your space reflect both your personality and needs (looks and function)

Do you have special needs? For example, a writer friend who had had a debilitating car accident, arranged her desktop so that the things she needed to use constantly were all within reach. If you have no pain, you will not think twice about contorting your body 90 degrees to pull a piece of paper out of the printer. If you have chronic pain; however, that move may be excruciating.

What are your needs? One worker invested in an electric stapler which seems decadent until you consider the fact that she staples hundreds of pages a day. The point of building your dream home office is that you can build a space that functions optimally for you. Work smart, not hard.

A Separate Peace. Regardless of the design, try to put together a space that you can get to (or away from) easily. If you set up shop in a corner of the kitchen, you'll face endless interruptions. If you have an office with a door, at the end of what you deem your work hours, you can close the door on the space and get on with your personal life. The most important consideration for your home office is being able to stop work without having to put everything away, so you can simply return to it later without missing a beat.

Desk Space. Your business dictates whether the desk is the centerpiece of the office or an afterthought. Your first step is figuring out who you are and what your special needs may be. I ran newspapers from the house (from writing to design to paste up which involved sheets of paper that measured 3' across). My desk is an L-shaped system with a drop down shelf for my keyboard and enough room for computer(s), printer, in out boxes and even a television set, as well as lots of file space in the drawers. It's deep enough to hold file cabinets underneath, well within reach, but out of sight.

If you see yourself inviting people into the office, a sleek meeting table may be more your style. Take a seamstress or interior designer, for example. The space requirement would involve the need to place huge bolts of fabric out with paint samples and the like. The paper requirements aren't quite as paramount.

Storage & Organization. The main considerations regarding storage involve: accessibility and type (shelving, drawers, etc.) Even if you can't afford file cabinets, the cardboard versions of file cabinets, magazine holders and the like can be covered with contact paper to give your office your own special touch, as well as a cohesive (not cheap) look.

Reinvent things to meet your needs. An organizer meant for screws and nails from a hardware store can be covered with the same contact paper or fabric used throughout the space. Do the same thing with basic corkboard or a bulletin board, using matching ribbons or fabric but keeping all the vital information you used in your sterile cubicle.

Nuts and Bolts: Lighting, Electrical Needs. Know Your Power Needs. Don't string one extension cord into another. Someone who runs multiple computers and printers will require substantially more computer and electrical capability than someone who runs a calligraphy business. Never underestimate your power needs. Also consider this when you are placing the equipment so you don't find yourself tripping over wires.

Body Works. Consider all the little things you rarely get or are never allowed to buy when you work in an office cubicle. You can get a stool to elevate your feet to take strain off your back. Most offices won't spring for such things. Spend a lot of time choosing your chair because you'll spend quite a bit of time there. It may seem frivolous, but it's something you'll have a long time. Don't settle for one of those $29.95 swiveling office-bot chairs if you have to roll quarters to afford a better one. The Sharper Image, for example, makes a Shiatsu Massage chair insert that has heat, roller bars and applies soothing, kneading action as tension sets in. And if you're running your own business, count on tension. These are the kinds of things that can be priority as opposed to "maybe" items.

A Fish Called Wanda. Ideally, the reason you chose to work at home is so you can do things your way. Most people learn this doesn't work out exactly as their mind's eye had originally deceived them into believing, but wherein the home office is concerned, you can do things to make it your own in a way you never can in most outside workplaces.

Susie, an administrative assistant in the foreclosure department of a family-owned auction business in Baltimore, keeps a calendar on her desk in her cubicle. That's it. Her theory, she says, is that on the day she chooses to leave, she can pick up her calendar and be gone in seconds. No need to worry about gathering family photos, drawings from grandchildren, etc.

With your home office, think plants (I kept one that had come from a cutting from my deceased grandmother), a rock garden, cheesy magnet photos of children. Anything that makes you productive and/or creative is within your realm. Don't think dollars so much as creativity. Make it your space, and add or change it as your needs and stage of life changes. You can't do that in the typical workplace, so take advantage of your power in this situation.