Balancing your Office Furniture for the Home with Form & Function

When we started to design our home office and pick what office furniture to use, we were faced with the difficult task of balancing the space between form and function.  While we wanted the office to be beautiful with an open and inviting design, we also had to make sure that the space was useful and fit for our specific needs.

The floor plan of our house is open, so our designated office space has three walls with a fourth boundary being an open walkway into the living and dining areas.  We chose this particular spot for the office because out of all the rooms in the house, this space had the most Ethernet ports.  With two printers, a VOIP phone system and 2 computers all requiring Internet access, we needed accessible ports that allowed us to not run wires across the office from a central hub.

We already owned 2 matching computer desks and an older traditional desk with file drawers.  The existing desk is one that is rather old and not easily used for most purposes.  Even so, it is a solid desk that has a long working surface that is perfect for holding our very heavy printers and area storage devices.  Centralizing our office equipment into one space keeps our working stations clear and free of communal equipment.  After we moved, we decided to purchase an additional matching desk to keep our space free of floating papers & notes.

When picking the desks that we wanted for our work spaces we decided that a cherry finish wooden desk with built in tower storage would be best.  We left the doors off of the storage cabinet to help with ventilation and cooling of the computers since they would be on most of the time (this should be less of a concern if you are using your computers for only a few hours at a time).  Each desk also has two drawers for supplies and hanging files.  This kind of general purpose office desk is exactly what we need.

We placed one desk against each of three walls and placed a fourth across the open access area to provide a natural boundary to the work space.  By keeping the furniture to the edge of the room, we maximize usable space within the center of the room.  This layout also controls paths into and through the work space, providing a natural flow to the room rather than leaving it completely open or restricting the space too much.

The built in bookcase is done and adds a positive feeling to the office.  Now when working from home, we have a useful and energized space that is fun to work in.  The wool rug will protect our bamboo floor so that we can eventually re-purpose the room without having to repair or replace the flooring after the heavy use that an office requires.  Now all that is left is picking out our art pieces for the walls and book shelves.
 

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