Creating the Ultimate Home Office
12th July 2017
Many regard working from a home office a luxury. Never having to deal with a commute to work or put up with a stuffy, uninspiring office environment sounds good, right? But not everyone realises that working from home can be tough, too. Differentiating home life and work life becomes challenging, and staying focused at home isn’t always easy.
The key to getting the balance right and making the most of your time is having a good, inspiring working environment of your own at home. But what does that mean and what does it require? Here, Modern Garden Rooms have put together a guide on everything you need to know when creating the ultimate home office. From the tech you’ll want around you to how you’re going to light it up – you don’t need to look anywhere else for guidance.
Let’s jump in.
Working from a home office
The most important decision when creating your home office is the space you create it in. Some people use a back bedroom; others dedicate a whole room in their house to creating an office. And both are good ideas if you’re short on space outside the house. But if possible, we always recommend creating an office in your garden, separate to your home.
The Cube Room is an ideal shape and size to create a home office in the garden. The reason we recommend keeping your office separate from your home is that home life and work life should be kept separate. And having an office outside of the house will help you associate the things you do there more with work than relaxing and pleasure.
Tech
Hard Drive
No home office should be without at least one hard drive. The work you’re doing is, after all, your livelihood. Imagine if a corrupted file or one slip of the finger meant that you’d lost a week’s worth of graft. A good hard drive should have enough space to backup all the work you’re doing on it. We’ve selected a couple that are portable too, allowing you to take your work with you should you find yourself away from your home office.
The Best:
Adata se730
Specs
Capacity: 250GB
Weight: 33g (1.1oz)
Colours: Gold/Red
Price Range: £110-130
The Budget:
Kingdian 120gb ssd
Specs
Capacity: 120GB
Weight: 45g
Colours: Black
Price Range: £40-50
monitor
Whether you’re using a desktop computer or a laptop, a good monitor is vital. You’re going to be staring at it for hours every, single, day. You don’t want to have to strain your eyes to view it. Here we’ve rounded up a couple of our favourite monitors for your home office this year so far.
THE BEST
AOC Agon AG271QG
Spec
Screen Size: 27”
Refresh Rate: 165Hz
LED Backlight: Y
Widescreen: Y
Price Range: £530-560
THE BUDGET
ASUS VC239h
Spec
Screen Size: 23”
LED Backlight: Y
Widescreen: Y
Price Range: £120-135
SPEAKERS
Most people who work from home like to blur out the background noise of traffic or children running through the house with music or ambient noise. A good pair of speakers will help provide quality, immersive sounds that should keep your focus on point.
The Best
ELAC Debut B6
Spec
Speaker type: 2-way, bass reflex
Tweeter: 1 x 1-inch cloth dome
Crossover Frequency: 44 to 20,000 Hz
Sensitivity: 87dB at 2.83 v/1m
Price: £280-300
The Budget
Sumvision Psyc Monic
Spec
Transmission Distance: Up to 10m
Frequency response: 90Hz-20KHz
Sensitivity: 80dB
Output power: 20W
Price Range: £37-45
mouse
You might not think that a fancy mouse is a vital component for your home office. Surely the mouse that comes with your PC is good enough?
Trust us when we say that once you’ve tried out one of the products below, you’ll never want to switch back. With multi-button functionality they’re designed to make your life a whole lot simpler.
The Best
Logitech MX Master
Price Range: £80-90
The budget
VicTsing 2.4G
Price Range: £5-8
keyboard
A good, ergonomic keyboard isn’t just going to make typing easier and faster. It’s going to help protect your wrists, too. Below we’ve selected keyboards that have a mechanical switch, making them more accurate with each key press and giving off more of a typewriter feel. Check out our favourite below.
The best
Cherry G80-3000
Spec
Dimensions: 500x255x50 mm
Number of keys: 105
Colour: Black
Price Range: £60-70
The Budget
Logitech Wireless Touch K400 Plus
Spec
Dimensions: 354.3×139.9×23.5 mm
Hot Keys: 13 integrated media keys
Connection: USB Unifying
Price Range: £20-40
Headphones
Don’t want to annoy your neighbours blasting ambient sounds and music? Need to listen closely to audio as part of your job? Then these headphones will help do the trick. When working from a home office these can be really useful. We’ve covered a higher costing headphone and a cheaper in-ear alternative here.
THE BEST
Denon AH-MM400
Spec
Colour: Black, wood
Connection: Wired
Form factor: Over-ear
Price Range: £210-235
the budget
SoundMAGIC E10
Spec
Colour: Silver, Red, Blue, Black
Connection: Wired
Form factor: In-ear
Price Range: £30-40
Phone Dock
Today, you can never be too far away from your smartphone. Especially if it’s how the company you work for connect and work with you. Check out some of the best desk phone docks on the market today and always have your phone visible and fully charged.
The Best
Twelve South HiRise
Price: £15-25
The budget
Pure Quality iPhone Dock
Price Range: £5-10
printer
No office is complete without a printer. But there are so many out there. Which do you chose? Here we’ve selected two of our favourite all rounder’s. When working from a home office you are going to need a printer!
The Best:
Epson WorkForce WF-3620DWF
Spec
Dimensions: 41.7×44.9×24.3 cm
Colour: Black
Wireless: Y
Price Range: £70-110
The Budget
HP Officejet Pro 6230
Spec
Dimension: 46.4×38.5×14.6 cm
Colour: Black
Wireless: Y
Price Range: £50-60
FURNITURE
The furniture you decorate and select to go in your home office is going to make a big difference. You’ll be sat in that chair, working at that desk for at least eight hours a day. It needs to be comfy and look good. To help guarantee that you don’t break your back working in your home office every day, we’ve put together some of the best furniture for home offices on the market.
Desk
The Best
Ergotron WorkFit-T
Price Range: £320-340
The budget
The Ready Desk
Price Range: £117-140
chair
The simple chair – surely you can buy any old chair to plonk your butt down and get to work?
Well think about it. When your working from a home office you’re sat in that chair for up to eight hours a day. It needs to be more than just a place to rest your legs. It needs to support your back and pelvis and feel comfortable for long periods of time. Here we’ve listed our two favourites.
The Best
Herman Miller SAYL office Chair
Price Range: £430-450
The Budget
Torkel Swivel Chair
Price Range: £70-90
Lighting
Good lighting not only helps you stay productive working from a home office, but will help protect your eyes from any serious damage while staring at a computer screen. Where possible, we obviously recommend natural lighting over artificial, but we understand that this isn’t always feasible.
The Best
Anglepoise Type 75 Floor Lamp
Price Range: £120-130
The budget
Habitat Bobby Floor Lamp
Price Range: £10-15
Colours
Many people don’t realise how colours can affect work ethics in office environments. But they do, and in a big way. The colour’s you choose to paint your office can affect energy, creativity, and your focus. Here’s a quick rundown of how colours change our mindset.
Blue – The colour blue is often associated with a stable and calming feeling. It’s recommended for productivity and is also associated with trust, intelligence, communication, and efficiency.
Green – If you work long hours, then green is a wise choice for the office. It doesn’t cause anywhere near as much eye fatigue as others and has a calming effect. It is also associated with peace, balance, and harmony.
Red – If much of your work involves a more ‘hands-on’ approach and physical activity, consider adding some reds to the office. It helps increase heart rate and often can evoke passions and emotions. It’s also associated with courage, strengths, stimulation, and excitement.
Yellow – If work involves a lot of creativity, consider yellow. It’s known as the ‘optimistic colour’ and can help your creative juices flow. It’s also associated with friendliness, self-esteem, and confidence.
Accessories
The working from a home office is almost complete. You’ve bought the desk you like most, picked out the chair that’s most likely to be kind to your back and invested in the tech you need. Now it’s time to mop up the last little bits and kit your office out with the accessories that complete your home office. Check out the little bits that we recommend purchasing to finish off your workspace.
Paper shredder
Make sure that every document you print remains private with a quality paper shredder. There are some basic shredders out there, but we recommend investing a little more money to make sure that your documents are destroyed correctly.
Fellowes Powershred 79Ci
Price Range: £140-150
ProAction 10 Sheet 21 Litre
Price Range: £30-45
Office plants
Bring a little life into your workspace with some office plants. when working from a home office you may think this isn’t the best place for plant life to thrive, but there are a few out there that will flourish. And they’re easy to maintain, so that you don’t spend more time pruning than working! Here are some of the most appropriate plants for office life.
Mouse Pad
Kensington Duo Gel Mouse Pad
fan
CSL Desk Fan
coffee mug
