Work at home office space?

[crl]

If you or your spouse works from home regularly (something like one or more full days a week), what is your office space like? Is it a spare bedroom? Part of another room? A den or office type room? A separate building? Do you have a desk? Shelves? File cabinets? Other furniture? How separate is it from where the rest of the family is during the work day?

What is good or bad about your space?

Thanks!
Catherine

[edurnemk]

I have a large desk in the family room. Our home has a a VERY open floor plan, so no separate study, but the family room is large enough that it fits a sectional sofa, TV Unit, a small table with 4 chairs, my desk, and about a third of the space is DS's "play area".

I do have bookshelves, and a filing cabinet.

I like that I can keep and eye on DS while I work, but at the same time the lack of privacy/quiet when I need to make phone calls or DS wants my attention can sometimes be a problem.

I work PT during the mornings (while DS is at school) and I usually go to the office, but sometimes need to do some work during the afternoon. Also if DS is sick or on vacation I spend more time working from home. So the actual amount of time I use my home office varies a lot.

[elektra]

Ours is a separate bedroom. It also has a door to the backyard. I have a desk, file cabinets, bookshelves, 2 computers- basic office stuff. There is no bedroom type furniture in here but it has fit a blow up queensized mattress.
I work from home full time so I needed a totally separate space with a door (and a lock!)
If it had a bathroom and was a bit further from the family room it would be ideal. But otherwise it works pretty well.

[twowhat?]

I haven't started yet but since I will be working full-time from home starting next month, I couldn't resist...

Our house also has a VERY open floorplan which we knew would be a challenge in terms of office space. There is one very large room (16 by 13 feet) on one side of the house enclosed by 3 walls and with a huge window that is our office space. It even has outlets in the floor to float a desk without tripping over wires. It has enough space for two large L-shaped desks and a small seating area, as well as a bookshelf and filing credenza (I'd probably get one that would double as a surface for printer, fax, router, etc.). It's really the perfect office space for 2 adults but it is not walled off and you can see right into it from the entry, den, and playroom.

If my new job goes well for several months to a year, we will seriously consider walling off the space. The other challenge is that because of the open floor plan, the the large office window provides natural light for a significant portion of the house downstairs. So our thinking is to wall the space off for sound purposes - the wall would be mostly glass (glass framed in molding and drywall) and with a double french door entry. I think it'll look really nice and I'm excited about it:)

[egoldber]

DH works from home every day. Our current home has an office/study.

Ours is on the main level which DH likes this though some may not. But what I don't like is he is NOT tidy and it is right by our front door so everyone sees it when they first walk in the house. Also, our plan is very open and he has a lot of conference calls. We have to try and not disturb him if we are home, which is incredibly inconvenient. He has a dedicated desk, bookshelves and filing cabin. He also shares the space with older DD's desk and computer which is far from ideal from both their perspectives.

We just started the process to build a house. In the new house, the office will be just for DH. And while the main part of the plan is open, the office will be sequestered away from the main living space and have a full door that DH can close.

ETA: Part of the reason we want the dedicated/non-shared space in the new house is so we can claim the home office tax deduction. Right now we can't because it is shared space.

[HIU8]

Our "office" is our 4th bedroom. This means no guestroom and guests sleep on a pull out in the living room. Basically, DH and I share the office space. He has a 2 sided desk, a file cabinet and some drawers. I have a 3x6 table and a file cabinet and a small set of drawers. We each have a computer and a printer as well. We keep the room closed most of the time b/c DH is simply not neat at all. His desk looks like a tornado hit it. I attempt to keep my piles somewhat tidy (ha ha), but I definitely have less clutter on the desk than he does.

We would like to either add on or move to a house with 5 bedrooms and/or 4 bedrooms and a dedicated den b/c DH will always do sidework and have a need for an office space in the house.

[BabbyO]

DH works FT from home. His "office" in in the basement. It is just a portion of the main basement space. We have a work out room, laundry room, work room, bathroom, and then the main space.

DH was able to get a 4 drawer lateral file from his old office for CHEAP because they didn't want to have to pay to have it hauled away. He uses a 6 ft banquet table as his desk (he preferred it to the desks we had). The area is sort of sectioned off from the "Family" area of the basement and there is a bathroom about 10 feet from DH's desk. (I joke that his office cleaning staff isn't doing a very good job lately because I've only been able to clean that bathroom every 2-3 weeks) It is in the basement so on the occasions that we are home (like when I was on maternity leave) we just close the basement door.

I know he said it is tough when we are there because he can still hear us and he hears us walking around, but most of the time we aren't there. His other complaints are that it gets cold down there and he doesn't see daylight much (although he often opens the back door which is right at the top of the stairs to let light down (his desk is right across from the stairs).

Anyway, he does have a laptop so really he can work anywhere in the house. Often he'll move out to the patio in the spring and fall.

We have no spare bedrooms and the only option for that would be to move the boys into the same room and turn the nursery into an office. I don't think this will happen.

[mom2khj]

DH works full time from home. Long before he did, we had converted the formal dining room to an office for both of our computers so he just uses that area. We have a huge kitchen and breakfast area, and no real need for a formal dining so this really works for us.

[rin]

DH works from home full time, and I do school-related stuff (still slogging away on my dissertation) three mornings a week.

We have a dedicated office that is in what would be a third bedroom. Because of the layout of our house, it's somewhat separated from the other living areas by the kitchen, so when DH needs to be on an important call we can put up a baby gate in the kitchen and at least DD won't be yelling right outside the office door.

In the office space, we have two desks (one for each of us), a bookshelf, a closet which we mostly use for storage, a document safe, and one filing cabinet. We've also got some houseplants in there, but those aren't really essential office components. :)

ETA: We've never taken the deduction for a home office; I suppose we could try, but we'd have to move my desk out and all of the extra storage that we stick in there, so it's never seemed worth it.

[♥ms.pacman♥]

DH works from home full time (when he's not traveling). His office is in a study on main floor (1st floor) with french doors. He has a desk, shelves, filing cabinets, printer, fax etc (all provided by his company thankfully). We also put in our own IKEA BILLY shelves in there to store our own books and stuff.

The good is that it's a dedicated space where he can shut the door, etc when he's on the phone or whatever, to prevent kiddos from coming in (i SAH). the bad is that it's ont he first floor, so if i want to host playdates, it will obviously be noisy. I think ideally it would be good to have an office on a floor separate from main floor. But for now it's pretty good.

i've never done the tax deduction thing for home office, bc the rules are pretty strict and we did not meet the criteria at least back in 2008 when we moved in. unless it's a home daycare situation or similar, the office/place of work area has to be closed off somehow, and it has to be exclusively used for work as if it was a regular non-home office (e.g. your kids can't ever be playing in there, you can't use part of it to store your own books/toys). i think the rules are more strict if you are an employee (which DH is) versus if you have your own business and are self-employed...e.g. i think if you work from home for your own convenience (vs. the employer's) you can't claim the deduction.

[sidmand]

We actually bought our current house specifically because it had a "real" office. I used to work out of a spare bedroom that didn't even have a door. At the time I didn't have kids but I had cats and having them walk across the keyboard while I was trying to type was a PITA.

The realtor told us we didn't want our current house because it was on the road. We persisted because a lawyer used to have his office in the house and that was very appealing. It is on a main road and that's not the greatest but I LOVE the separate office!

It's a THREE room office. I don't need all that space. I mainly work in the back room. One room we don't even use at part of the office any more.

But I have a desk, Mac, huge B&W printer, Internet, etc. The "reception" area has two other computers and cabinets for storage.

It is very separate. I can shut off two doors from the house to get there. I like that a lot. When DS was little I had to go in there--there is also a separate outside entrance for it and I literally had to go out the front door and in the office door so he wouldn't find me while the sitter was here.

We do take a tax deduction for the office although I have a TV in there, but I use the TV while I'm working for noise.

[twowhat?]

i've never done the tax deduction thing for home office, bc the rules are pretty strict and we did not meet the criteria at least back in 2008 when we moved in. unless it's a home daycare situation or similar, the office/place of work area has to be closed off somehow, and it has to be exclusively used for work as if it was a regular non-home office (e.g. your kids can't ever be playing in there, you can't use part of it to store your own books/toys). i think the rules are more strict if you are an employee (which DH is) versus if you have your own business and are self-employed...e.g. i think if you work from home for your own convenience (vs. the employer's) you can't claim the deduction.

I'm curious to hear from people who take the tax deduction. From what I've been reading, the "office" doesn't have to be a separate room, but the "space" (desk in a corner of the den, for example, or the area bounded by desk and file cabinet, or whatever) has to be used only for work purposes. That makes a bit more sense to me because obviously not everyone will have a separate room for the office.

[♥ms.pacman♥]

I'm curious to hear from people who take the tax deduction. From what I've been reading, the "office" doesn't have to be a separate room, but the "space" (desk in a corner of the den, for example, or the area bounded by desk and file cabinet, or whatever) has to be used only for work purposes. That makes a bit more sense to me because obviously not everyone will have a separate room for the office.

ok i asked DH about this. few years ago we did ask H&R Block agent and they told us it didn't qualify at the time...we have a dedicated office but we have non-work stuff in there too (books, some toys) and at the time my desk was in there too, and kids sometimes go in there so it didn't qualify "exclusive business use"..they said the area claimed basically had be just like an non-home office. also supposedly claiming home office tax deduction increases chances of audit and my paranoid DH was not a fan of that :) there was other stuff too, i can't remember.

eta: ok i just went and asked DH about this. :) the other caveat is that if you are an employee you can only claim the part that's more than 2% of your gross income. when we work the numbers (even if we just assume area of desk, like 6x8, or abt 50sq feet), the annual expenses (percentage of mortgage, electricity, etc) it worked out to be around $400, which is much less than 2% annual income, so we couldn't claim anything anyway. so it didnt seem to really work out unless the office area being claimed is relatively big compared to the size of your home (e.g. if your office is 10% of your home it seems to make more sense).

[brgnmom]

we converted one of our bedrooms into an office, near the front entry of our home. The office has two sets of bookshelves - one for DH and the other for my books. we need to eventually purchase an L-shaped desk though b/c we currently have one of those basic foldable tables from office max. it serves its purpose though of holding the desktop & printer. our office is a work-in-progress.

[crl]

Thank you!

Catherine