The last month has seen a massive rise in people working from home due to government lockdown restrictions. While it may be easy to become a social media advocate to stay home, the reality may not be so easy to handle.
Some may have gone into lockdown with an ideal home office setup, but if you are anything like the team at Granit you have had to adapt to working from dining tables, bedrooms, living rooms, lofts – the list goes on.
In this blog post, we want to examine some minor changes you can make with some home office design ideas to help get you through these uncertain times. We’ve included photos of some of our favourite home working spaces in the hope that you will find some inspiration!
Plants and Greenery in Home Offices:
In an ideal world, we would all position our desks next to big windows which provide plenty of natural light and views to beautiful gardens outside.
If this isn’t an option for you, it can be a great idea to incorporate a potted plant or vase of flowers within your working space. Plants help to add colour to your space and their presence can aid in creativity and inspiration.
Lighting in Home Offices:
Lighting is crucial for a productive working environment. Poor lighting can lead to headaches and fatigue, which will negatively affect your work performance. As mentioned above, natural daylight is an ideal source of light if possible but, we know this is not always the case. In the absence of daylight or even in addition to, we recommend a combination of ambient and task lighting.
Ambient light can be achieved through downlights, pendants, strip lights and wall lights and will help create even light levels through the room.
Task lighting can be added through desk lamps or floor lamps. Task lighting is a place to get creative and add a bit of personality to your space.
Background:
You may find that your time on video calls has increased significantly since working from home. This intrusion could mean your un-made bed or messy kitchen appears in the background. If you are engaging in meetings with clients or other important people, you may not want to invite them to such a personal view of your home life.
For those important calls, we suggest finding a relatively neutral and tidy background. You may wish to have a blank wall behind or add some tasteful artwork. Alternatively, you might want to show off your nicely designed home – try to remember to do a quick tidy up first!
Ergonomics:
Sitting in a comfortable work environment is essential and will help avoid aches and pains. These discomforts may not be apparent straight away but can develop over time if you do not have an ergonomic setup. This is one of our key home office design ideas and you can find some excellent guidance on sitting at a desk from the NHS here.
You may not have access to a proper desk chair right now but try your best to work with what you have available. We suggest adding a pillow to your seat or a stack of books under your computer if your seating height is uncomfortable.
Always make sure you are sitting with good posture; you may even wish to try alternating to a standing work position throughout the day.
Colour:
The colours you choose to surround yourself with can have a significant impact on your creativity. Take this example of the colour vardo (a rich teal) used in a living room.
This example of an office space surrounded in vibrant red is also a lovely example of adding colour to a workspace to inspire creativity.
Books, artwork, accent walls and accessories can be great ways to introduce colour into your workspace without creating a dominating effect.
We hope that you have found some inspiration from our home office design ideas and that your workspace can become the utopia you deserve. Stay home and stay safe!
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