If you work from home, your home office is one of the most important spaces in your house. So today we’re bringing you more tips, ideas, and inspiration for your home-office. I’ll be taking you through a design I did recently for a gentleman’s home-office renovation, so you can see what the process is like from start to finish!

Choosing a Space

The first step in designing your home office will be choosing where to set it up. Home offices are most effective when you’re able to use an entire room. Having a whole room as a dedicated work space will increase your focus and productivity, by creating a physical separation between work and rest. If possible, choose a room with lots of windows so that you can work in natural light. It’s nice to have some extra space to move around during the day. And if you’re the kind of person who likes to walk around while on the phone, having enough space for that in your office will be a big help!

Starting With the Base

When designing any room, I like to start with the base and work my way from there. Choosing one base element to design the rest of the room around makes it easier to coordinate the design. For this gentlemen’s home office, we decided to keep the layout of the room, which meant the focus was on redesigning what was already there. I started with this beautiful rug full of blues, beige, and mocha colors. Starting with this rug meant that I was able to hold the paint samples and other fabric samples directly against it and see that it would all match. For more tips on choosing the perfect paint color for your home office, check out this article.

For the windows, I chose a beautiful valance with three Roman shades under it. Now that the base of the room is all done, we can start turning it into an office!

Furniture & fixings

The most important part of every home office is of course, the desk. Depending on what type of work you do, it’s best to get a desk that’s large enough for you to work without getting too cluttered. For this client, we opted for a large dark-colored desk with beautiful brass details that match the mocha color of the walls and in the rug. This desk was large enough for him to keep his office essentials on the desktop while still having plenty of space to work. They say working in a clutter-free environment helps increase focus and efficiency. We got a matching cabinet for the corner of the office as well, which provides good storage for any documents and office supplies, as well as a place to keep the phone and other bits.

This room already had built-in bookcases, so we left those, but I added a grass cloth behind the bookcase to add color and texture into the room. We also added a window seat cushion upholstered in a textured mocha linen, as well as two throw cushions in a leopard print cut velvet. This added more texture and provided additional seating in the office. We added in a couple of lamps, for those days when work spills over into the evening. All that’s left is the decor!

A Personal Touch

The decor in your home office should motivate you to work, bring you comfort when it gets stressful, and provide an appropriate background for any video-calls, all without becoming too distracting. It’s a delicate balance. We recommend keeping the decor minimal. For this gentlemen’s office, we kept the wall behind his desk simple, with this gorgeous American flag painting. It provides a lovely splash of color and is appropriate to appear in any video calls he may attend.

The bookshelves are filled with books, pictures, certificates, some sporting decor. The baseball bat, balls, and golf clubs are that extra personal touch to inspire my client throughout his workday!

Interested in renovating? Head to our services page to see how we can help you create and design the home office of your dreams!