Any tips on creating a home office? What are the basic pieces that you need? What elements can you add and play with?
Vianca Añonuevo Favila: In creating a home office, decorate your desk with things that would keep yourself relaxed and balanced in case things get a bit hectic and stressful. The key is to have an overall experience of sight, smell and sound. Art, crystals, candles and diffusers work well for me. I surround myself too with lots of plants and dried flowers to make my home office look pretty. Creating a pretty home office helps inspire one to work, I believe; and plants and flowers relax one’s eyes especially for those staring at a blue screen often.
Styling one’s background is also something to consider. Showing a messy home can be distracting to the person you are talking to. As you do online meetings, you give a glimpse of your home (even if just a portion of it) to the person you are speaking to--having a beautiful setting is also a reflection of one’s self.
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Mark Steven Perez: The main objective for a home office is to be able to create a workspace that’s effective, comfortable and of course, inspiring for any user. It’s basically client-centred. That person should be able to efficiently focus on his/her tasks and be productive at the end of the day. The space should be well-lit, [as well as] free from unnecessary clutter and distractions. The worktable should be good enough for the amount of counter space the person needs. Some needs more counter space for papers, books and devices. Others can actually work with just the minimum, like me.
Storage spaces and organisation are also important. When you “go to work”, you want your space to be clean and organised well so you know where to get your files, tools and other small stuff. Extra drawers really come in handy. For those who need a printer, it’s also important to know where to put them. We are so lucky we can now print wirelessly. Sometimes these printers eat so much of the counter space. Now, we can hide these printers away and place them in some shelving so we can really maximise our work counters.
Choosing the right chair for the user is also a bit tricky so most of the time, we ask our clients to try and sit on the chair options first before they make the purchase. After all, it’s the client who would be the one sitting there for almost the entire day. The chair has to be very comfortable and ergonomically designed especially for those who need to sit there for more than four hours a day. Here, comfort, functionality, long term use, not to mention maintenance, are the things that we really need to consider [on top of] aesthetics and price.
Once we have defined the essential requirements, we can now create and visualise the look that would best fit and inspire the homeowner. Color scheme, materials and finishes of the furniture, lighting, storage and nice table accessories come in play here. Plants also play a big role, for we always need a visual rest from looking at our computer for hours. It’s always nice to have some flowers or greens on top of your desk or near you at some corner in the room. Besides, they also help purify the air we breathe in the room. When it comes to lighting, some people prefer daylight fixtures; others want it warm-white or somewhere in the middle, like cool-white. But cool-white to warm-white lighting, from 3000k to 4000k, are more flattering than having daylights. Daylight is really more "office". But it really depends on the client’s preference. If he/she prefers daylight as general lighting, we can put a nice interesting table lamp on one corner and have a cool-white bulb in it to set the ambiance.
Overall, the client’s need and personality are what we really consider when designing for an ideal work-from-home set up. It’s very personal in a way and we, as the interior designers, try our best to marry what they need and like and what we think professionally would really work best for them.
Again, know what you need for you to function and work well. Source online for inspiration and also to shop, so you don’t have to leave your home and risk your health. To save up, it’s always best to re-use and re-purpose. You just have to be creative in putting things together in your workspace. Invest on your chair that’s comfortable enough to sit on and that supports your back properly. To reiterate, it’s comfort, functionality, long term use and maintenance come first, before aesthetics and price.
