Working from home with DH - permanently

[Wfhconundrum]

This isn’t quite an Aibu really but would love any advice.

I work from home - it’s my own small business and renting an office wouldn’t be financially beneficial.

Dh has just been told that they are downsizing his office space so basically in the future he will only need to go into the office maybe once or twice a month.

I have an office space in the corner of our dining area - dh has been working from the dining table - we are literally about 2ft away from each other. No issues in terms of getting along etc, but it’s sometimes been tricky where say, one of us has a zoom call or whatever.

However now it’s looking to be an ongoing thing in starting to worry that spending literally all day every day together probably isn’t going to be that healthy. As I say, we’ve been fine but worry a bit about this.

We do have space for an office upstairs - but I hate it and so does dh, we both like where we are (though I want my bloody dining table back!)

Does anyone else work within close proximity like this? Any tips for staying sane?

We used to have an office in box room, then children got older and it became a bedroom. Then rented a cheap office in town.
At home we had a separate phone line for business.
Do you have a garage?
Friends built a shed within their garage as a dark-room for photography. It was easier to keep it warm and dry in winter. He built it with cheap plywood on a frame, and because many garages are damp it needs a floor. 2x2 (I have been told by DH).
With good lighting would that work?
No windows can be off putting though.
You are on the right track wanting proper furniture and desk at right height and separating work from home. Need to close the door on it sometimes.
It is not fixed to walls, so will not upset landlord and it can be dismantled and move with you

I was already working from home and now the OH is working from home for the next year at least. We have the smallest bedroom as our home office, two decent chairs, desk along one wall, dual monitors each.

It works ok for us as I don't generally have video meetings (he has lots). I have a few half hour meetings I dial into every week but I can do this on my mobile so take it as a good opportunity to walk around a little and get away from sitting at a desk. I occasionally take my laptop downstairs to the kitchen table if we do have a clash of meetings and it's one where I need to be sat at the laptop.

I actually quite enjoy having a 'colleague' as well. There's someone there to have a little rant at if something's gone wrong (even though 90% of the time we have no idea what the other is talking about). We have bacon sandwiches together on a Friday.

We have another spare room which is currently my craft room and I did consider moving into their initially but have found it works fine as is.

You both need to pull yourselves together and get professional. If you’re both working permanently from home you need proper workspace with decent storage. You cannot have two people working from home without a proper study/ies.

One of you takes the upstairs room and the other buys a garden office, they’re pretty good value

Otherwise you’ll end up getting divorced.

I work from an upstairs study - it’s lovely.

@WaffleCash I’m quite enjoying having a colleague too! Honestly it’s been nice - but I fear that may change if it’s forever. Also right now we can go out in the garden etc - won’t be the same come winter.

Another small dimension to it (that has nowt to do with logistics of desks etc) is that say I think “fuck it - I want to sit and watch tv this afternoon” it’s all a bit odd feeling.

@TatianaBis I do have a proper workspace with decent storage. I’ve worked from home for four years!! Dh however doesn’t.

DH and I both work from home and have done for the past 6 years. We have separate offices - you simply cannot share a room. We each listen to different music, have meetings at different times.

Both offices have a proper desk and chair. Sitting on a dining table chair will wreck his back. We meet at 10am for a quick cup of tea, have lunch at midday followed by a walk. Similar interaction to as if we were in an office.

Our single bedroom was my office until January when I lost my job due to ill health. I then turned it into a more restful spare room/office so I would still work from home when I was well but it didn't look like my old space as this gave me panic attacks.

Now my husband is in there 3 days a week and I hate it. He makes it look like proper work and not the work I do now. He'd love to wfh all the time. I'd hate it if he did, my whole routine has been lost and I get no peace. If it was permanent we'd have to have words about how it would work without me becoming very unwell again.

I think your DH should at least try to move upstairs. You were there first. You are there for the long haul, whereas his WFH is temporary.

Is there not some kind of garden office that you could take with you if you moved ? Will your landlord not let you have a temp building ? I was thinking like a shepherds hut type thing?

@istheresomethingishouldknow that’s the issue! It’s not temporary! Well I suppose if he say got another job at some point he’d probably be straight back to town but for now - his company is downsizing their office space.

Also, forgot to add, we both use wireless earphone/microphones so it’s easy to listen to music if the other person is on a call. We both have ones with good noise cancellation so, if either of us really need to concentrate (very detailed spreadsheet work or whatever), we just let the other know we have noise cancellation on, and then the other person will make more of an effort to keep the chatter down.

Occasionally, we have times when we don’t have calls/zooms and not working on anything too taxing, so we listen to a podcast together. We like that.

I'm hoping that come winter there'll be other things opening up so we'll be going back to doing our respective sports/hobbies, perhaps meeting up with other people in the evenings etc.

I think actually him being at home has been hugely helpful for me over the past few months. I worked from home normally, but i used to go swimming every morning, could pop out and meet a friend for coffee etc. I'm not sure how well I'd have coped wfh alone with no other interactions possible either.

@WaffleCash I honestly think the gym opening will be a life saver. I tend to do classes during the day and dh I think will go early morning or straight after work.

I have regularly worked from home for about 3 years, full time since lockdown. DH has been on furlough.

I use the dining table, along with DD2 for school work. DH would like me to move out of the dining area as it interferes with his TV watching and gaming.

We have 2 spare rooms upstairs. One only has a skylight. We could put a desk in the other, but then we would lose the ability to put the trickle bed up to make the room a double.

Also, we have 2 dogs, who aren’t allowed upstairs so would be shut out/in conservatory (doggy prison) if i work upstairs.

We do have one more space we could repurpose, but the light is poor and I wouldn’t be able to see the road and horses field i can see from the dining table. I suspect I will end up redesigning that room, and improving the lighting long term. But, DH does split shifts and naps in bed in the afternoons, and being in that room would disturb him more.

@AlwaysAJoker we are the opposite. Both like to work with no music or background noise. But it’s good to both be on the same page with this - would be awful if you had to work in silence if you like to have something in the background - and for me - background noise just distracts me.

Yep. He needs to go upstairs as you were there first.

Would switching bedrooms upstairs help?

Take it turns with one in a bedroom one in dining room. Alternate days perhaps? Great ideas for small office spaces from IKEA.

DH and I have both WFH for the last 10 years. Very different jobs, very different personalities. Would not work if we shared an office. We have two offices and it works brilliantly. We normally travel a bit for work so usually a day or two at the most at home together each week. Being at home constantly for lockdown didn’t worry me at all. We don’t have a routine or rules, it just works. Sometimes we stop for lunch together but usually we just do our own thing as that natural break point happens at different times. Always make coffee for the other when we make one for ourselves. I include a biscuit when I need him to make my excel behave. He adds a biscuit when he needs me to check his spelling.

We bought a house that could fit two offices - sacrificed on a lot of other things as we knew this was so crucial for us.

My colleague is the same - she WFH with her husband and they share an office. They have headsets for calls so she can do a call without hearing him - what she doesn’t appreciate is that the microphone picks his voice up so we can hear him even if she can’t. It makes it hard to hear her and is really distracting.

I don’t think it would automatically be an issue - my parents ran a post office which we lived above all the time I was growing up, and have recently had their 45th wedding anniversary.
They spent five and half days a week together (8.30-6) in the space behind the counter, which had been made from what used to be the hallway of the building when it was a domestic house - it was about 1.5m deep with shelves at the back, and less than 4m long, with some of that length being a giant waist height safe.

@How2Help other than the separate offices your routine sounds a lot like ours including the biscuit bribery.

Maybe I’m worrying unnecessarily we do seem to rub along well.

I think maybe one weird dynamic is that I’m working for myself and he’s employed so different style of working (e.g I can choose to say sunbathe for two hours if my schedule allows it - he can’t).

@AuditAngel don’t get me started on the dog issue! mine always sat under my desk by my feet during the day. He has now taken to half the day by mine and half the day by dh’s feet. I feel betrayed

I think maybe one weird dynamic is that I’m working for myself and he’s employed so different style of working (e.g I can choose to say sunbathe for two hours if my schedule allows it - he can’t).

We're the same, he has defined hours of working and has to be logged on to his phone system. I am a contractor and can largely dictate my own working hours so I have said on more than one occasion 'sod it, i'm going to do some gardening whilst the weather is nice, i'll catch up on work when it's raining at the weekend'. He understands this, he has a job where out of hours he can just switch off from it completely so it's swings and roundabouts.

Do you have a room downstairs that you could move upstairs to free up space. Maybe take some furniture you don't use from downstairs, put it upstairs to give you more of an office space downstairs. Tumble dryer upstairs to free up a corner, or a cabinet ? Tbh all you really need downstairs is a sofa and tv, or could you move that upstairs ?

It's pretty obvious that a space needs to be sorted out for him. Don't do the thing where the woman moves on for the man.

He has a problem and he needs to solve it and you'll help. But he's not taking over your space and that's just the way it is.