Functional Home Office Spaces became a necessity in 2020 due to “Work from Home Mandates” and long quarantine periods. A year later, many companies have prolonged their working from home periods and other have done away with corporate office space all together. In response many homeowners have decided to create better workspaces or upgrade their existing arrangement. Whether the space is small, has a multiuse purpose, or is a dedicated large room here are some keys to designing a functional home office space that will keep you excited to go to work.
Plenty of Storage Space:
The Home Office is a central location to a hub of technology, piles of paperwork, and every office supply accessory imaginable. Having dedicated storage space to keep files, conceal cords, and hide the clutter creates a more productive work and headspace. Arizona’s Interior Innovations Custom cabinetry can fit your unique needs for storage and create a durable workspace built to last.
Large Work Area
Whether your work area is a dining room table, a small corner in the bedroom, or a private den your actual desktop space is important. Once the clutter is cleared and assigned its designated space your desktop should be durable and have the ability to hold more than just a laptop. Creating expandable desktops has allowed many work-from-homers to use a large space and hide it away during times of un-use. This concept has grown in popularity with homeschooling moms. The ease of creating a focused workspace for children to complete their schoolwork and then the ability to hide the mess and the clutter during afterschool hours and over the weekend has made the adjustment to homeschooling easier on a lot of families. Arizona’s Interior Innovations can help design this creative space with our dedicated team of innovative designers.
Displaying Personal Mementos
Creating an office space that features personal touches provides motivation and positive reinforcements throughout the workday. Bulletin boards featuring photos, custom shelves to hold personal books and photo frames are just a few examples of the little touches that you can add to your home office to make it a space you enjoy being in.
Flexible Sitting or Standing Availability
Research shows that sitting at your desk for long periods of time contributes to weight gain, back problems, and increase blood sugar whereas standing periodically can help reduce all of those and increase productivity. Higher desktops are one way to help with the versatility of sitting and standing for long periods of time. Meanwhile some home offices are welcoming treadmills and bikes to help with increased movement during the workday and reaching fitness goals while on the clock.
Gone are the days of long office hours in a cubicle surrounded by fluorescent lighting. Custom home offices provide a more productive workspace and add value to your home. If you are thinking of customizing your office space or looking for inspiration for a functional home office space contact Arizona’s Interior Innovations and set your appointment with one of our design experts to create your ideal office workspace.
Lighting is often the most overlooked component in interior decorating. People often forget just how much the lighting can make or break the look and style of a room. Choosing the right lighting is more than just style; you need to consider brightness, placement, layering and much more. Here’s a quick overview on how to choose the best lighting for each room in your home.
Different types of lighting
In general, each room should have three different types of lighting: ambient lighting, task lighting, and accent lighting. Here’s a breakdown of what each of these lighting types means:
Ambient lighting
Ambient lighting is the main source of lighting in any given room, typically coming from overhead fixtures or recessed lighting. Ambient light serves the most basic purpose of lighting a room. The amount of ambient lighting your room has is typically decided on by your home builder who installs these kinds of lights as part of basic home construction. However, these basic light installations don’t usually have much style, and as tastes change over the years, or if you do any major renovations, you have an opportunity to change your ambient lighting up a bit. You’ll want to ensure that ambient lighting in your high function areas such as kitchens and bathrooms is fairly bright while ambient lighting in, say, a bedroom can be less so. Of course, it’s all up to personal taste but in general, kitchen and bathroom ambient lighting is the brightest, dining rooms and family rooms are less bright, and bedrooms have the softest ambient lighting. Typically, ambient lighting is in every room, close to the center, and close to the ceiling.
Task lighting
Task lighting provide lights for specific activities or uses in a space. Examples would be hallway lights, under-cabinet lighting to illuminate countertops, or a vanity light above a mirror. You often see task lighting in dens and home offices too. Depending on your needs, you might choose task lighting to direct the light where you need it most when you need it. Not every room needs task lighting but it’s perfectly acceptable if you have task lighting in each and every room if it’s needed!
Accent lighting
Accent lighting is where you get to really show your style and can definitely make a difference in a room’s decor. It’s designed to draw attention to a decorative focal point in a room, like a work of art, inside a wall cutout or bookshelf, or it can be a focal point on its own if your style is chandeliers or other decorative lamps. You tend to see accent lighting in bedrooms, living rooms, and dining rooms, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have it in any room, such as a bathroom!
Layering lighting
There’s actually a technique to introducing these three types of lighting into each room of your home; it’s called “layering”. You can work with an interior design professional to help choose any or all of these, but here are a few basics on how to layer lighting in your home.
First and foremost, don’t forget to consider natural light when you’re choosing how much lighting you need in each room. Darker rooms will need more lighting while rooms that get a light of sunlight might need less except for evenings. You also don’t want your lighting types to compete. Make sure that task lights don’t interfere with the ambiance of accent lighting. Don’t place accent lighting directly underneath ambient lighting or you’re lose the decorative impact. Placement makes a difference to ensure all three styles work together well.
There are at least two more elements to light layering to take into consideration: the proper light bulbs and lighting controls. Pay attention to the wattage of your bulbs you choose and if you want to control how bright or how dim lighting is, opt for dimmers and other lighting controls.
Lighting can be a fun way to upgrade the look of your home, whether you’re doing a minor change or a major renovation. Take the time to plan out your three lighting types to ensure you choose the best lighting for your home.
