How To Renovate Any Space Into An Organized Home Office

Home office organization is appealing for a number of reasons. Even if you never work from home, a dedicated home office space can be an ideal place to keep bills, deal with household paperwork, and keep the home computer. In a situation like this, even something like an unused breakfast nook, or a large hall closet can often suffice. These more centralized locations tend to be more attractive for a small home office than say converting a downstairs guest bedroom.

For those who have a career where they can work from home, a home office space often needs to take things a step further. Professionals who need a dedicated office space in their home typically need a single room with a door they can close. This also includes things like high-speed internet and other media connections, as well as filing space, shelving, and other storage options.

The Purge

Whether you are converting a closet, transforming a kitchen nook, or doing a whole room remodel to accommodate a professional home office, you need to get out the old to make room for the new. For some this might mean stripping the room down to the studs, for others, it might just mean finding a new spot in the kitchen for paper towels and canned goods.

Assessing Your Space

Not only does the purge help get things organized in their new, proper place, it also gives you a better idea of just how much space you have to work with. At that point, you can start to play around with measurements for desks or determine the kind of layout that will work best for you.

For a more major transition, like developing a guest bedroom into a professional office, you might want to consider bringing in outside consultation. Closettec’s design team has decades of experience creating home office spaces to suit just about any need. Our installation techs can also take care of the handiwork to make sure the job gets done right the first time.

Determining Your Needs

There are a lot of features to consider when you are planning out a home office space. Taking a moment to contemplate each one, where it could fit, and how often you’ll use it, will help you assign priorities. The following are some of the more popular options you might find in a modern home office.

A Mail Station Cubby

In most home offices desk space is at a premium, and the classic “In” and “Out” boxes can take up a lot of critical square inches. Being able to transform a nearby shelf into a mail station is often as easy as installing a few shelf dividers. If nothing else it helps keep things organized, while encouraging junk mail to find its rightful place in the paper shredder.

A Printer Station

In some home offices the printer is a dinosaur of a bygone era. For others, the printer is alive and well in the 21st century and it needs a place close to the desk. Especially if you need to copy, scan, print, and fax documents.

Just like the mail, a printer can eat up a lot of space on what is most likely going to be a small desktop. Being able to convert a nearby drawer or cabinet into a printer station is often an ideal solution to this problem. Many times, a wireless network connection can be installed to keep things connected without having to disguise unsightly cords.

Filing Space

For some people, a traditional metal filing cabinet is still appealing, and convenient. Yet for others files, folders and paper documents are best kept out of sight. In many of these cases, the characteristics of the room will dictate the filing system that is best.

Many time shelves and deeply recessed walls can be converted into discrete filing drawer systems. Perhaps a visually appealing wardrobe or cabinet door can be used to disguise what would otherwise be an ugly filing drawer. In a situation where space is limited, a hanging file system might be used to transform a deep desk drawer.

Office Supply Storage

Paper, writing instruments, folders, and other office supplies take up space. Often keeping them in a desk drawer isn’t ideal. If possible, you might be able to convert a nearby hall closet into an office supply storage space. If you have shelves available, it might be possible to install sliding doors or cabinets to disguise the otherwise unsightly items.

Adjustable shelves are also a great option for maximizing vertical space. Dowel or track systems allow you to change the height of each shelf to make sure you aren’t wasting precious vertical square inches that could be used to store things like office supplies or hanging folders.

Long Term Document Storage

Once your home office is up and running, you mind find that you need to store certain documents, like tax returns, receipts, and signed contracts. The early inclination is to let them fill up what started out as empty drawer space.

Yet as time goes on, these papers can pile up. Especially, in a professional’s home office. In time, you might even find the desk drawer feeling heavy to open.

Getting these documents out of the space needed for more active concerns can be as simple as purchasing a document storage box, or simply moving them to a tote bin. They can then be kept in a garage storage area, hall closet or simply stowed under a bed.

Choosing The Right Desk

For some office spaces, a desk is little more than a flat space to hold a computer and give you a place to do a little writing. For others choosing the right desk ranks right up there with choosing a family pet. Especially if you are going to be using the space for a professional home office!

Yet many home office spaces also tend to be small. Chances are good that you will find the perfect desk for the space you want. Most people find a desk they fall in love with, but the laws of geometry simply won’t allow it to fit into space they have available.

In a moment like this, you don’t have to accept a desk that is less than what you want. In fact, a custom desk is often the ideal solution to home offices with limited space, and they are surprisingly more affordable than you might think.

At Closettec our professional design team has years of experience transforming all manner of home spaces into innovative, modern home offices. This includes designing, manufacturing and installing a custom desk tailored to your needs and the space available.