Space Planning: Home Office

I’ve been working on my home office for quite a while.  The biggest issue was that the room was our temporary living space for a month or two and then it was sort of a catch-all.  Therefore, there was only so much I could do to the room until recently.  I thought it would be great to discuss this particular space because this is a great example of how proper space planning helps with ensuring proper scale and fit of furniture but after the items are loaded in the room, it becomes clear that a better space plan would work.

So here’s the space before we bought the house:

It’s the smallest room in the house and the only bedroom with a view so perfect for my office.  I originally planned to have a large desk in the middle of the room with a smaller desktop in the closet to house the larger monitor and computer that I use when drawing floorplans.  This would leave the desk in the middle of the room free for design projects (and the smaller laptop).  I also would have a nice area to lounge…you know just in case work was just so overwhelming :-).

Initially, I wanted to make this a very feminine space and planned to use the wallpaper that I used in the nursery.  But then I realized that I would sometimes need to share the office with the hubby so I decided to tone it down.  More importantly, I decided to add an additional work station and more storage to account for the hubby’s papers, etc.

I wasn’t sure about the chair off the corner but knew I really wanted a place to sit and relax.  There was also third iteration of the space plan that included two desktops on the wall and changed the closet to simple storage.

Ultimately, after buying all the furniture and placing it in the room, I realized that I didn’t love the way the room felt.  Luckily, all the furniture was properly sized but I just had too much storage and more than enough work space for the both of us.  I wanted to lighten up the room…workload wise.  So I made the decision to remove some of the storage and make enough space for a proper lounging area.  This is the final floorplan:

 

As of November 1(ish), we will have been in the house for one year! To commemorate this (and make me feel better about how much work we still have to do), I’m finally having a few spaces professionally photographed.  I’ll be sure to share the final office photos soon.