Two Great Home Office Layout Ideas
If you are one of the lucky people that had a separate room for their home office during the pandemic (oh how I envy you!) but has no idea how to to best layout the room, then this post is for you!
Most of the time spare rooms serve several purposes – home office, storage, guest bedroom or as the home of the washed laundry that you haven’t gotten around to folding yet. I know, it’s been weeks and you are running out of clean socks but are still putting off folding the laundry…I am there with you! So I have come up with 2 different layouts for the same room that address most of these issues. You’ll still have to get around to folding the laundry though…
Home Office Layout Option 1
Here, the desk faces the window. The desk is made up of file cabinets on either end as storage for office supplies with a custom desk top. For this type of desk an easy fix is heading to Ikea – they have the possibility to configure a custom desk with either legs or file cabinets. With the desk facing a window, it is important to keep in mind which direction the room faces and during what times of day you prefer working. If the window faces south you will have the sun shining in your face all day long, which will make working impossible. If you have a north-facing window, sitting right at the window is ideal. With east or west facing rooms, it really depends on what time of day you prefer working and the type of window treatments you have installed.
The floating shelves on both sides of the window offer the possibility to store files, tools (and in my case lots and lots of fabric and material samples) and to display decorative objects. You could even consider installing spots at the bottom of the shelves for a beautiful visual effect.
There is extra storage (you can never ever have enough storage!) due to the two closets to the left and right of the door as well as the sideboard.
As a lot of home offices also serve as guest bedrooms. After all, who has loads of extra spare rooms (at least here in Europe space is always an issue)? I am not a fan of having a full bed in your home office. It makes the room less appealing as an office and often a guest bedroom is often only used for a few nights every year. The sofa in here is a pull-out sofa so that you can sleep guests while still having a fully functioning home office. There are a lot of beautifully designed pull out sofa beds out there. Here are the ones I love the most:
Home Office Layout Option 2
Here, an extra long desk is placed on the long wall of the room with cabinets serving as a replacement for standard table legs. Floating shelves on either side of the desk provide storage space for office supplies as well as decorative space. An idea board on the wall between the desks offers a place to store important notes.
Storage is supplied by a closet next to the door. If you have the funds to have something custom built or are quite handy yourself, you could replace the shelves on the other side of the door with a close/shelf combination that offers extra storage.
The two lounge chairs on the other side of the room can be replaced with a pull out bed sofa. There are other options that serve guests just as well though:
1. An air bed can be stored away in a closet and taken out for relatives visiting or friends that enjoyed the wine too much at a dinner party. An automatic pump is included and it blows up within 5 minutes to a bed measuring 153 cm x 203 cm. Air beds are surprisingly comfortable and are a great and cheaper alternative to sofa beds!
2. Instead of a fold-out sofa bed, you could also have a fold out chair bed. This gives you the possibility for other seating configurations, which comes in handy in particularly narrow rooms.
3. A murphy bed folds open and is a great option for rooms where the space is limited. The come as horizontal or vertical fold-outs. There are even versions that fold out on top of a sofa or have a desk in the front! The mattrass and even bedding can be secured with buckles and can be folded up together. In my opinion, horizontal murphy beds are particularly versatile. The one shown above looks like a dresser and even has a drawer at the bottom. Great for storing bedding when it is not in use!
So there you go – two layouts for the same room with the option of turning your home office into a guest bedroom when all your friends come to visit!
