Happy Friday folks! Christmas is less than two weeks away. Hope your shopping and decorating is going well. I have yet to purchase a single item. Pretty par for the course for me though.
Today I wanted to start sharing some of our home office ideas. If you follow our Pinterest home office ideas board, you may have already seen some of these images, but I thought I’d elaborate on the concepts we’re considering. You’ll have some understanding as to why we pinned them.
First a quick update on the floors…. We scheduled the office redo sometime after Christmas. We agreed with some of the comments in our last office post that replacing the floors BEFORE building the built-ins was the smarter idea. Good call, guys. We’ll be bringing you some hardwood floor installation videos hopefully before the new year!
The office improvement project is going to to start with getting together some ideas for the overall look or concept that we’re shooting for. Once we settle on some of the more important ideas like furniture arrangement, we’ll talk about the more specific requirements we have. For example, Lisa wants the computer printer to be hidden inside a cabinet. That’s a pretty specific requirement that we can tackle later once we know what we’re building.
Just wanted to mention that process so you have a better understanding of how we approach more significant home improvement projects. The most important goal I have with our blogging nowadays is to not just share our projects ideas, but to pass along the skills and experiences we’ve picked up along the way. After this office series is over, you should have a much better understanding of how to start your own major room renovation from early ideas to the final paint stroke. We’re kicking that process off today with this ideas post.
Let’s dive in…
Here is a preliminary list of office design ideas that we like. We’re focusing on the orientation of the office furniture here. It’s the biggest decision we’ll have to make up front. Keep in mind that not all of these options are compatible and some may get discarded. We’ll narrow down our choices later and come up with a firm list of requirements from which we can design our finished space.
1. Built-ins.
This is our bread and butter. The far wall will definitely have built-ins with some sort of desk in the center. We’re going to stick with inset shaker doors, but I’m going to add a couple twists. I’ll share more of the specific cabinet designs when we get to that later on down the road.
2. Separate Desk
Ideally, we’d love for this space to have two desks. Not sure how we’re going to pull this off yet. One option is a separate desk in the center of the room facing out. We both love the look of a darker desk and countertop for that matter. I would love to take a swing at building one of these too. Looks like fun.
3. Side by Side Desks
Instead of a separate desk, we could always make the built-in desk option wider to accommodate two workstations. This would be the easiest to build since I would just be making a built-in and no separate unit. Although, if we skip the detached desk, then we’d need to figure out what to do with the added empty space in the center of the room.
4. Desk Peninsula
This is a cool option. Bit of a hybrid solution to the question of desk location. It’s both built-in and separate. While I like it, I know Lisa wants a crafting station someplace in here and I don’t think she’ll have enough desktop space if we’re both sharing the same counter.
5. Coffered Ceiling
In addition to our furniture choices, we’re also considering a coffered ceiling. It adds some character and would be a helpful trial run for when I eventually attempt it in our family room and kitchen.
So what do you think of these options? Is there any in particular that catches your eye? What desk orientation do you like best? What do you think works the best?
Wondering if the options that look the best are also the options that actually WORK the best.
