Home Office Floor Plans: a house log

It seems our excitement for the plans that we have been cooking up for the showhouse office has spilled over to our own office. Well, that and the fact that ours is looking fairly sad lately, having lately pilfered both its armchair and Expedit for the nursery. It does not assist that our chalkboard still says “Merry Christmas” on it. So in short, yeah, this office screams “I have got my ish together.”

We are excited to be thinking about the office because it is one of our go-to full-of-raw-potential spaces in the house (so much space! so much light!). And with the baby’s impending arrival (six weeks!) we are feeling the urge to consolidate our business life so it is less likely to infiltrate family time. You know, like making “no more laptops on the diner table” rules. Another example of our fully not-contained work spread is that all of my accounting stuff right now lives in a kitchen cabinet because my desk wall lacks storage (but apparently not holiday cheer).

This is a room where we will skip the Phase 1 stuff and jump right to Phase 2 (like we have done in the sunroom, for instance) because it does not require the amount of planning/saving/splurging that a kitchen or bathroom makeover does (no pricey appliances, new counters & tile, etc) and we are fairly confident that we can end up with a space that works for us for the long-haul (the kitchen & bathrooms tend to take more percolation time – we are still changing our minds everyday). Note: There is more on how/why/when we tend to do Phase 1 updates here.

We in fact think this space has a ton of potential to not only be functional, but to be striking, thanks to the fact that it is one of the most light-filled rooms in our house, and it has that fairly bay window in the back.

We want the bay window to remain a focal point, since it is so nicely centered in the room – but we have thought it through, and officially nixed the idea of adding a built-in bench seat because:

• we do not see a bench seat as being especially functional for an office
• the window is in fact truly shallow so it would be a quite narrow seat
• it might get in the way of our current Christmas tree spot (is that truly my third X-mas mention? Geez) – although I am sure we could find another tree spot if necessary, so the tree is not a deal breaker on its own

But what the room giveth with the bay window, it taketh away elsewhere. As in, we have some other challenges to work around, like the less-than-centered doorway on the other side of the room. I guess we can only have so much symmetry in our lives…

The front window wall is also strong for light, but not so strong for furniture placement. Since the windows are so close to the floor, they truly make it hard to put anything on that side of the room without blocking a lot of light (and making for a strange view from the street).

With those challenges in mind, Sherry and I brainstormed a list of priorities for our office. Some are simply carried over from our last office, but some are new given the larger, more light-filled space.

• Two Desks: Duh, right? Sherry typically works at the kitchen table (more on that here), but we’d enjoy to create a dedicated space in here for her to truly spread out. And my small parson’s table could certainly be improved by more space and more drawers. So there is a lot we can do to improve on this.
• Storage: We do not have a ton of paperwork, but we’d enjoy to expand our file storage. Mostly to bring in some of the stuff that we have shoved into other rooms – like tax documents and side gig paperwork – rather than having that stuff spread randomly around the house.
• A Big Meeting / Craft Table: We do not have a ton of meetings here, but we have had sufficient lately (mostly showhouse related) that we’d like to stop having them in our kitchen or dining room. Plus, it would serve the double function of an area for completing/shooting smaller projects (with all the natural light in this room, it’d be a strong spot for photography).
• Whiteboard / Pinboard / Magnetboard: We want a pleasant big wall where we can organize our to-do list, calendar, future project ideas, etc, etc. where we can both see everything. Right now we both keep ourselves organized on our own phones and notebooks, so some communal organization is needed to get us both in the same loop again. We are not sure exactly what this looks like yet, but we are already brainstorming a few options that we could implement.
• Doors: Partly because this room seems made for some pleasant french doors, but also because it would be strong to get some brought in soundproofing in here – especially during conference calls or other times that one of us truly needs to concentrate.
• Kid-Friendly Space: It is been pleasant to have Clara’s drawing desk in here (so we have the option to “work” together during less intense moments of the day) – so we’d like to create a flexible little area that works for smaller kids but also can transition to work for bigger kids (so it is not something that we outgrow in a few years).

With priorities set, we began floor planning (I took a few new apps for a spin to plan the room, so I will share more on those in another post). Here is a rough representation of the current furniture plan. Yes, it is fairly sad.

We began by simply expanding on our current layout to include the things we hoped and bring things up to scale for the room. We have liked having the table centered in the bay window, so perhaps simply upgrading to a bigger table and some curtains could work? And then we could wrap an L-shaped desk around that corner to give us some built-in desk storage (kinda like our last office) and make room for both of us to sit.

But we were not crazy about the corner-desk in that option since it seemed kinda cramped. And since that is where we’d likely be spending most of our time, it felt weird to not give it more priority in the room – and to take advantage of all the windows by in fact getting to see out of at least one of them.

Then we went crazy and tried making the desks “the stars” of the room by keeping them symmetrical with the bay window. The most logical version of this was two separate desks sort of flanking the window. But even that attempt was not quite logical because it put one desk right in front of a too-low window (so you’d see the side of the desk from the street) – and it also would require us weaving around the big table every time we hoped to get to our seats.

So next we tried mocking up an idea that was in fact our original concept for this space. It includes office storage along the whole back wall, with desk areas that are integrated into them. Here is our inspiration picture, complete with a friendly looking feline.

We originally discarded this idea because we thought it’d screw up the symmetry of the window – which was something we truly liked about the room. But as we played around with the floor plan, we realized we could maintain the symmetry by putting something in the bottom right corner too, so the bay window still feels centered. Plus this plan would leave the middle of the room fairly open for a big table, which we could move around – or even move fully out if the need arose. We also could move our laptops to the meeting/craft table to get a pleasant view out the window if we ever feel too wall-locked at our desks (Sherry right now unplugs and works at the kitchen table everyday, so that should not be too much of an adjustment).

Update: We are getting some questions about where the Barnacle will go, but Clara’s desk in fact has two chairs and is long sufficient for two kids (we have even had four kids at it if we pull it away from the wall) so it’ll accommodate the bun as well as the bean.

Update #2: We are also getting questions about window glare from working along that back wall, but John has worked there for the past 9 months without an issue (the sun streams in but the room is wide sufficient for it to hit the floor about 5′ from his chair – so it is not up at screen level).

We are still letting the concept simmer in our heads, but we are fairly confident that we will start heading in that last layout’s direction since it feels like it makes the most sense for the way we work. Although “start heading” involves painting a whole lot of blue trim first (sixty six window mullions to be exact). And it takes four coats… so that is a whole lot of painting.

What is on your priority list when it comes to a home office? Do you have a desk tucked into the corner of your den (we totally did that in our first house)? Is there a little work area in your kitchen with a laptop hookup? Or do you have a dedicated home office? Does anyone have work stuff in the bedroom? Growing up Sherry’s dad had a computer and all of his paperwork in there, but that does not seem to be something most people do anymore.