Advice - home office space required

[MrsRockAndRoll]

Looking for some advice. I am in Scotland.

I've just started a new job and struggling using our living spaces as a home office. My contract is permanent WFH. We have a kitchen/diner area and a living room that are communal.

However I would prefer a permanent living space that means if the family are home I'm not in the way & also to "feel" like I'm at work and not at home.

Moving house or an extension are not an option.

Friends have suggested either a summer house (worried it'll be cold come winter?) or turning our loft into an office space.

What would you suggest are considerations to think of and would I need planning permission for these?

Budget £1k

1k wont make a loft conversion.

What's the upstairs situation?

For £5k you can get a fully insulated garden pod with lights and power - I don't know of a cheaper way than that.

I bought an old bureau desk of FB market place and painted it up to make it more modern.

It sits in the corner of my kitchen, so when I am at work it is folded open with everything I need (including noise cancelling headset for when the kids are home and I need to concentrate / have a meeting) and when I have finished work it folds back up and everything is out of sight.

I hate that feeling of seeing my laptop when I am 'off the clock' and knowing I could do one more email or whatever, having it hidden away outside of working hours subconsciously allows me to have that break and forget about work.

@Dinosauraddict

For £5k you can get a fully insulated garden pod with lights and power - I don't know of a cheaper way than that.

I looked into this, they were 10-15k in the area I live (east Midlands)

I think you will struggle to reach your expectations with your budget.

Have you any bedroom space?

I put my desk between the side of the bed and the wall, like a divider (space at both sides) and I face towards the room not the wall, so my view is over the bed but out of the window and I really do forget in on my bedroom. Nobody comes near when the door is shut.

For £1k neither. Loft conversions are like £20-50k

A bureau desk like shown above and use in your bedroom would be the best option. Use the £1k for desk, ergonomic chair and sound cancelling headphones. Use £1 of that for a ‘do not disturb’ sign for door when busy

@Dinosauraddict

For £5k you can get a fully insulated garden pod with lights and power - I don't know of a cheaper way than that.

Can you give more details? That sound like quite a bit less than I thought it would be, even with some DIY.

I'm in a similar position although in my case I want to continue WFH in my existing job and would like a separate office and have plenty of space in the garden. I'd spend £5k if I could get it done for this price, but honestly thought it would be 2/3 times that amount, which is more than I'd want to spend.

I'm not sure a bureau is the answer tbh. You need a decent amount of space to put it, it won't work well if you use a large screen and you still have a great ugly office chair to look at even if your bureau hides your laptop.

At our last house we used worktop to build a desk into an alcove on the landing and that worked well. It was wide enough to put storage underneath.

DS3 has a fold up garden table in his room that fits down the side of his chest of drawers when not in use. He uses it for the keyboard and mouse for his gaming computer.

Personally, I am working in the dining room. I have a storage box that everything goes into at the of the day. It’s not ideal but it’s okay.

You need to designate a corner of a room somewhere. Proper desk, office chair and a little bit of storage, even if its just filing boxes on the desk and some storage boxes underneath. Good office mat to put your chair on. Screen raiser if necessary. Wireless mouse and keyboard. Ideally cable directly into your router or wifi extender. Make sure light around you is adjustable so lamps / blinds so that you can change this throughout the day as the light changes. Proper screen and webcam with your laptop / tower cabled in. Some sort of room divider / screen around the desk to give privacy / hide the crap. And (importantly) sitting (if you can) facing into the room so that you can still see people coming and going, but with a blank wall behind you for calls so that you can't be interrupted or have random things happening behind you. Best headset you can afford. I think you could do that for 1k quite easily.

A friend kitted out her summer house (she already had one in the garden). It works really well - you walk to and from work (but an easy commute, lol), so you keep work and home separate. (It does look she is in a sauna though when she does zoom calls - due to the wood walls, lol). Would that work if you have the garden space? I turned my spare room into an office - if someone ever actually comes to stay ever again I’ll worry about it then! Another friend screened off an area in her sitting room and uses space saving furniture - it looks great (she doesn’t like it though it, as you never feel like you stop working, but it was the only option).

You won't be able to do much with that money. What about sourcing an extra desk and chair that you can put in a bedroom to use when others are home? I WFH part of the week in normal times (and obviously all the time now) and have for more than a decade. Personally, I work from the kitchen table as it's a nice bright space and kettle and fridge are nearby. But when I need to work and dc/dh are home, I have a desk in my son's bedroom that I can use when I need privacy. It's not a separate space I would use all the time as it's dark and far from things. But it's fine when I have a late meeting. Or section off a bit of space in the lounge, put up a screen to divide the space and put a desk there.

A properly insulated summer house with electric and heat would be lovely, but will cost about 15x your budget. I would be more inclined to move house eventually if it's going to be a long-term change.

You could ask on your local Facebook if anyone nearby has a small office space to rent.

Of course, this may not always be practical with Covid, but from mid May you would be allowed into someone else's house/office.

Thanks everyone, I'm clearly being very naive on costs!
Kids have a bedroom each which I wouldn't change & our hall is small.

My desk folds up neatly & that plus office chair would fit on my side of the bedroom if I brought everything up. It fits into a space where only wall would be visible.

I'll continue working downstairs and if the kids or DH are at home I can change to upstairs

I wfh permanently and use the space under the stairs. Sounds very Harry Potter-ish, but it's the perfect fit for multiple screens, printer etc.
It also means that when we're all home, if I'm working it's not using family space as such, and doesn't invade our home as such.
I personally would struggle to do this in the bedroom.