If you work from home, do you have an office space?

[sanahoo]

I know it’s a luxury to have one but I do wish I had an office space of sort.

Bother is that we live in a 2 bed house with two rooms upstairs and two rooms down, and are reluctant now to upsize given interest rates and how expensive life is getting. We don’t have kids yet but hoping to try soon and so I don’t want to get too used to having the spare bedroom as my office if I will then have to uproot everything from there very soon

Currently I work from the kitchen table (for meetings) and the sofa the rest of the time, sometimes even outside if its sunny enough as we have lovely garden furniture. I feel unusual in this. I only work from home two days a week maximum and I’m in the office the rest of the time so don’t know if it’s a huge deal. What’s everyone elses set ups?

I live alone in a one bedroom flat. I used my (small, round) dining table to start off with during Covid but it really fucked my back up so I sold it and bought a desk and brought my desk chair from work home. We're now working part home, part work, someone noticed my desk at work had no chair so replaced it. Thanks whoever that was!

I was about to type this in response to a few posters. There's no way that dining tables, sofa working or using a laptop without an external monitor can meet the DSE / VDU requirements.

Yes.

Luckily the house already has a study, and I then converted the box room as well. So We both wfh and have an office each. We have a closed door policy for calls, the dog usually lies on the landing between us

I was working on the kitchen table march - dec 2020
And it was awful! I cannot imagine still doing that now.

We had our office chairs delivered to our homes from work fairly early in lockdown. I couldn't have coped with using a dining room chair for much longer!

I’m self employed and have worked at the dining room table for about 5 years now. I would love my own office but the only spare ‘room’ we have is a kind of hallway that gets freezing in winter.

Small two bed house, no dedicated office space. I reconfigured the larger of the two bedrooms to carve out a corner for a 1m long desk and a proper office chair. I have a desk riser so I can alternate between standing and sitting, and an external monitor; it’s bijou but it’s adequate and meets my OH assessment requirements.

The attic room is our spare room and I have a desk and proper chair and proper set up there far away from the rest of the house. I WFH 1 or 2 days a week, but much prefer being in the office.

DH WFH every day, and he moves about. He has a desk in the dining room which is in a modern extension with a lovely view of the garden. But he also works in the sitting room (we have a small writing desk there) and our bedroom (at the dressing table). The one room he doesn't like working in is the attic where he could work in peace. I am trying to work out the best set up so he has a permanent desk he likes that gives him privacy and means we don't have to look at or listen to his noisy computer.

Like you, I am fortunate enough to have a spare bedroom to work in.
The difference is, I use mine.
I can't understand why you wouldn't.

You said you are "hoping to try {to conceive} soon". Even if you became pregnant in the next month, the baby wouldn't arrive for another 9 months, and then would be in with you for 6 months at least. Potentially you wouldn't go back to work for a year.
What is the point in not using what could a a much better workspace for all this time, on mights and maybes two years hence ?

I know wfh 2 days a week. I'm fortunate to have a spare bedroom which is now my office and is properly set up with desk, double screen etc. Not sure I could work otherwise

We both work from the dining table, me full time and DP c.3 days a week. We sit either end. We have a 4 bed house, just the two of us, but we have never sorted out a specific office spaces for us.

Our 4th bedroom is now my office, it works really well. We do hybrid: 2 days in the office, 3 days at home

Shocked at all the people who don't have a proper set up when wfh. You really should have a proper desk, chair, monitor etc as it will cause you issues later on. It's very bad for your health. Ideally it should also be in a different room as well to be able to mentally switch off, it's very claustrophobic to be working in your bedroom or living room and can't be good subconsciously for your mental health to be in one space all the time. Prison is better than this!

I work from the boxroom. It should be the 4th bedroom but you'd get a bed and not much else in. I wfh permanently so need a dedicated office. We moved after covid and I insisted I have an office as I was working from my bedroom. I'm on teams all day so need my own room so not to disturb anyone.

We had an office built in the garden, when we downsized, it’s insulated, cabled, double glazed. Best £15k we have ever spent. It’s a lovely space to work in, we all wfh, not a covid thing, we worked from home long before the pandemic.

When we renovated the house we put in an office for me. Next to our bedroom and it's the last room
In the house so very peaceful and my favorite room.

I work from home and do very long hours. I'm not sure my body would survive working from the kitchen table. It's just the wrong height and gives me serious issues.

I did laptop at the table during most of Covid and it was dreadful. Finally got a desk in the corner of out living room (it was very long) which was joyous.
Now we've moved, partly because we both wfh, and are very very fortunate to both have offices (4th bedroom and playroom). It was just about top of the list when we were searching.

DH and I both have a spare room each as a dedicated office. A friend commented on how tidy our house was compared to hers (similar sized houses same number of DC!) and it’s because all of our screens/printers/paperwork is all out of sight.

No I don't - I work from the dining table mostly. But I think once my dd has gone back to university in the Autumn, I'll get a proper desk and chair for her room. The thing that puts me off is that it's in the attic up a several flights of stairs!

If I had the money, I'd build an office in the garden. (once my youngest dd loses interest in the trampoline anyway).

I work from the sofa 4 days a week, my laptop on my knee. Sometimes if I have a lot of paper work I will sit at the dining table but it's not comfy for long periods. My manager is aware and my DSE assessment I've just done I didn't tell the whole truth although my manager is fully aware of my work set up as I've had multiple conversations with her about it.

We built a garden office a few years ago and it's been the best money we've spent on the house. We do have a spare room which we shared during Covid but with young kids it was always hard to switch off during those lockdown months.
A local builder built an amazing space based on some Pinterest drawings I showed him and we made it into 2 separate office rooms.

Yes I have a desk with three monitors and a proper chair. I couldn't do my work from the sofa, it requires a proper mouse and keyboard setup and at least two monitors. I am fully WFH. DH is too and has the same kind of setup as above.

I work from the dining table, but I am alone in the house. We do have a spare room, but I much prefer working downstairs with the patio doors open to the garden etc than just staring at a wall all day in a small bedroom.

I have a wireless keyboard/mouse and a high res USB-C monitor that also powers my laptop, so I just need to put that on the table, plug it into power and laptop and I'm good to go. It's as good as a dedicated desk setup and easy to put away each day.

Until recently I worked from the kitchen table.

As we use it to eat it means it has to be cleared of my work stuff every evening which has always given me the incentive to "pack away work". Only thing I leave out is my screen but it's out of sight (and gets properly packed away when I finish my working week)

I recently bought a large fold down desk. Mainly for kids / homework but I've used it in the living room this week. It's positioned between two windows so lots of light and a better view.

I work part time but 100% from home and unless someone is poorly the kids are at school / in childcare so working on the kitchen table isn't as unprofessional as it sounds.

I'm infinitely more productive at home and there are no plans to go back into the office, not least as our office has been sold (we have a second office we can book desks in should we need to)

Yes, I work from a box room. I've had a lock on it since 2020 to prevent child bursting into Teams calls.

I bought one of these for DH after getting fed up with his work papers being in our living space:

www.daals.co.uk/products/ernest-writing-bureau-in-white-oak-colour?variant=32678557089843&currency=GBP&gclid=CjwKCAjw-vmkBhBMEiwAlrMeFyzapF_SLeXjkgKkdx3i4PU3Yd5YEIS0qoySzORvk8lXmfeo_0ePFBoCL8cQAvD_BwE

Set up the spare room, OP. Even if you do end up using it as a nursery, you can take care of your back health till then.

It's important to have some psychological separation between home and work, I think.

Yes, we have a double reception room and the joint office space (for me and DH) is in one half. I would prefer it if it was a separate room and we plan to have dividing doors installed eventually.

Through Covid we had an open plan kitchen/living area/play area which was awful, DH was wfh the whole time. People are always positive about the reduced cost of travel when wfh but forget about the cost of needing office space at home. The added cost of an equivalent desk space that you'd get at work must be thousands on a mortgage (and a cost saving to employers who aren't passing it on to employees). The fact that most people aren't able to increase property size to allow for it doesn't negate the fact that it's needed, and people are risking back/eye health by working in inappropriate situations (laptop on sofas etc) which would not meet h&s rules in a workplace.