Should modern furniture for the home office be any different to what you would expect to find in a general commercial office? What do you really need in an office at home that is different from any other type of office? A desk, chair, space for computer, printer and so on and filing and shelf space: is that sufficient?
A large part of the answer lies in the size of the room available to be used as an office at home, part in what you use the office for and the rest in your personal design preferences. Some people prefer modern furniture with lots of steel, glass and plastic, while others prefer solid wood.
There is a world of difference between these different options, so let’s discuss the best use of space first. That seems to be the main issue with many people that have a home office. The importance of this issue and how it is solved will depend a great deal on whether your home office is used as your own personal space, to run a small home business or is your main workplace when you are working for a corporation.
Making Best Using of Home Office Space
If we begin by assuming that your office is small, then what we discuss can also be applied to larger offices. A good way of making best use of a small area is to combine a desk and a wall unit consisting of hutches, shelves, drawers and cupboards. Hutches and shelves can be used for paper storage, a printer and other office accessories.
You can save on space for file cabinets by incorporating deep drawers in your desk or wall units fitted with filing rails. By incorporating a peninsular desk you can also save on desk space. Not necessarily the area of your desk itself, but the home office floor area required to incorporate your desk.
Peninsular desks and partner desks either side of the common peninsular unit are good ways of designing home office furniture to accommodate more than one person. You can also save on required space by using a combination printer that incorporate a printer, copier and scanner. That will leave you plenty room for a fax machine if you need one, though many people working from home use their computer to send and receive faxes.
Modern Furniture and Home Office Decor
If you are decorating your home office in addition to furnishing it, the sensible thing is to choose the style of furniture first. You can then make decision on the color of your wall and floor coverings. If you like dark oak, then you will need a lighter shade of general décor to highlight your home office furniture.
If you prefer a more ultra-modern furniture style, with pale shades of wood framing bright metallic and glass structures, then more colorful decorative elements might be more appropriate. However, most people who work from home prefer solid wood furniture because of its feel and its strength. It is easier to incorporate all the elements of an office using wood as a structural material than metal and glass.
Keep Your Office Bright – But Not Garish
What is more important is the brightness and use of light in a home office. Whether you are using wooden furniture or not, your walls should be pale rather than dark, and wooden floors should be accented with colorful rugs. In fact you can use accent rugs as a base for your furniture.
If you keep your woodwork white: the doors, windows and skirting, then you can introduce colored accents in your drapes or lampshades. A home office should be a peaceful place to work in, and not made exciting with bright reds and yellows. That’s fine for a dining room with all its chatter, but not an office.
The most common combination for modern furniture in a home office is a mid-shade wood, such as cherry, maple or oak, and a light colored wood floor. Add to that white or pale grey woodwork, mid-shade walls and deeply colored drapes and rugs, and you should have an office that feels comfortable to work in.
Modern furniture as most people understand the term is generally not suitable for offices. The perfect solution would be able to design your own home office furniture and have it constructed for you. Then you can practically design your furniture around your existing decor if that suits you better.