To wonder if people who like WFH all live in big houses

[redskydelight]

As per title really.
3 of us who could work at home and DD studying for A Levels.

We have a 4 bedroom house so should be ample for our needs, but the (modern, small) rooms simply weren't designed to accommodate so many separate work spaces as well as space to eat, sleep, relax etc. We're all now choosing to work/study more and more out of the house because of being on top of each other at home.

I really don't know why so many people rave about wfh. I can only assume they must have big houses and therefore don't have to put in place timeshare arrangements for use of the dining table.

I love it. Although I do have a 4 bedroom and 1 is not used as a bedroom I actually mainly work in the kitchen. I am about to turn spare room in to office though. However I've also got an extra living space downstairs too currently used as playroom for the kids. So I wld have space for more ppl to use for work if they had to.

It's only me working at home though my husband works out of the house and the kids at school/nursery so it's fab for me 😃

I imagine ur situation is more unusual. Most households I know only one wfh or a couple with both wfh and that looks annoying. I cld hear the other person on a call while I was on a call with their other half. That wld drive me mad!

I love WFH. But then, I quite liked lockdown too. Surprisingly because I’m always out. But an enforced break was weirdly enjoyable. No fomo. Don’t think the size of the house made a huge difference.

I mostly hate WFH. I am longing to be told to go back in to the office.
I have to work on my dressing table as it's the only comfortable space. Dh WFH too and nabbed the spare room before I did. I am soo bored of our company and staring at the same walls day after day. All motivation for my job nose dived, I have completely gone off my husband and I miss the banter office life brings. And the better coffee. I like keeping work / life separate but WFH kind of blends the two together in to some sort of a beige hellish existence where we only discuss room temperature, whether the dog pooed on her walk and if the bin men have been.

Apart from that it's wonderful.

I hate work from home, a desk in the corner of the bedroom, I can't use the kitchen or living room as the kids come home at 3, I don't finish til 4:30 earliest, and I need 2 screens.
My commute was a lovely 20 mins cycle ride.
But, for people who love love love WFH, don't you miss interacting with other humans, not through a screen?
So commute time and cost is a factor I agree, but also I think it is about whether people like and enjoy the company of colleagues, and/or benefit from daily interaction with people they don't also live with.

I have a big house with separate office room and I don't particularly like it. I do like saving myself over 3 hours travel a day and the cost but I find it difficult to focus and lonely. Also fed up of screens.

I live in a 2-bed flat in an urban area and I hate WFH when DH is there. One year old DS is at nursery during the day but there is baby clobber all over the flat and I find it stifling and distracting seeing laundry that needs doing or other house chores that need to be done. We do hybrid working and take turns, one works from home and does the nursery run, the other goes to the office. That works great for us. Makes for a more relaxed start to the day for the baby, no rushing to fling him into nursery before running for a train. But full time WFH? No bloody way.
Also my husband had a serious depressive episode/mental breakdown in 2021 that we are still picking up the pieces from, and being together all the time WFH together is just too much. I need to go to the office and detach from family life sometimes.
I think people who have big houses and/or straightforward family situations tend to like WFH. If you live in a flat and you have shit going on at home the office is needed...

I preferred working from home when DH and I were both doing it in a one bedroom flat (not a morning person and hate commuting). Now we’re in a 3 bedroom house it’s absolutely dreamy!

We have a home office that is also housing the piano and some toys. It was mine for my degree then WFH came in and H used it. At that time I had me and 1’ child at dining table, a little table for the preschooler next to us and then oldest upstairs at the built in desk. Have plenty of room comparatively.

i didn’t retake the office when H went away for work so still work at dining table. He gets home early to miss traffic and works a few more hours then WFH Fridays.

I love working from home. I would prefer if DP went back to work though 😂
We do have space that means it is fine for us though

I have a tiny house and a chronic health condition. Wfh is helping me cling onto my job a while longer because my boss doesn't notice the sheer effort involved in keeping going and keeping up. How long I'll be able to keep my house is another matter, of course.

People have all kinds of circumstances and reasons.

Nope, standard mid terrace ex council house. My desk is set up in a corner of the livingroom and I have to put it all away over December so I can put up the tree etc. No other available space to work in the house.

Love wfh. Loved it even during lockdown when the kids (teens) were in the house, although Im alone through the day now when school is on.
No commute is a major thing. Hours saved. No interruptions or having to listen to other people's moaning/coughing/phone calls/inane chat.
I can make tea anytime I want.
I can have tuna for lunch every day if I fancy and not be the office stinker.
I know the milk in the fridge is fresh each day and not potentially butter.
I don't have to negotiate the room temperature with 8 other people to find something between baltic and tropical.
I can get some sporadic tasks done through the day like a load of washing on or a quick walk round the block with the dog.

I could go on and on. Work/life balance has improved exponentially for me.

It suits me fine- I live in a 3 bed semi- no dedicated office- I work from the dining room table. I'm home alone 8 am - 17.30 though- Monday to Friday.
Adult DS and DH work out of the home. Very, very occasionally these days DH might work from home but it would only be if he had covid symptoms and felt well enough to work.
We had a few periods over the lockdowns where DH and I both WFH and it drove us insane at the time. DS was still at college and doing distance learning - arrrgh- was awful all 3 of us under each others feet all day. DH is so LOUD when on a call and I'm sure he thought I was his assistant or summat . Used to ask 'what are you making us for lunch!!' as well. If you can't be arsed to sort yourself out love go on 'Just Eat' - I have a meeting at 12.
Much better these days - I have the option of working at the office again whenever I want- do it maybe once a month for specific meetings face to face but some people do 2/3 days regularly.
Many advantages to WFH - not paying for and wasting time commuting. Have very flexible working policy as well eg- can take 2 hours over lunch and go out in daylight.

Or small house but made the most of having time with the best people I could ask to know. We are close anyway but aside from the crap going on in the world we loved having that time together.

I despised lockdown because I had to work from the dining room table while looking after a 5 year old, while my husband (who earns more and works full time as opposed to my part time hours) had his own office where he could shut the door. It was hideous.

Now I have my own office and I like it a lot better, but I would much prefer to have a local office that I could wander in and out of when I fancied company.

We have a (very small) 4 bed so we both have a little office each, which was the one condition we had when buying a house. We needed either two offices or somewhere else for one of us to work with space for a proper desk and chair that wasn't in our bedroom. The trade off was that the living room and kitchen are absolutely tiny - it's a very peculiar layout and we hope to move sooner rather than later.

small desk in bedrooms

I live in a tiny house (2 bed bungalow) but I love wfh. It's tidy and clean and it's my sanctuary. I light candles and play music and watch the garden from my window with a cuppa.

Bliss.

Small 2 bed house here with 2 adults wfh.

It's fine, not ideal. But preferable to getting up at 6am for a 2hr commute, then getting home at 7pm with 60pw petrol costs.

We've been allowed to hybrid/continue wfh and we only have 1 desk with extra monitors so DH and I bicker/coin toss over who gets the desk on which days. He has more meetings, I do more data/multi spreadsheets so we coordinate usage of tye desk and screens.

This is still much more preferable to long commute and ££ petrol.

I WFH in a teeny tiny house and love it

It's not just the size of the house,
but the number of people who live there . I love working from home and only have a small house. However there is only myself and DH since our DS moved out so we now have a spare room / office for me to work in .

I love WFH. I'm back in the office 4 days a week and can't wait for my WFH day. My husband mostly works from home. We don't have a huge house but do have a spare bedroom. My husband works on a desk in there and I flit between the kitchen and a bureau in the bedroom.
I'm far more productive working from home because I'm not constantly interrupted or distracted by colleagues. It will also depend on your office environment but mine is chaotic and I prefer the peace and quiet of home. I have no commute and can close my laptop and immediately start dinner and spend time with my family so we actually spend more quality time together.
There are several of my colleagues who also prefer WFH and they don't live in huge houses either.

Nope! Your house sounds bigger than mine.

My son brought a One bedroom flat. The couple living there previously were both wfh, one in the bedroom and the other in the lounge. They moved to a house.

DP and I both WFH full time. Both of us since pre lockdown. We do live in a large house but we bought it specifically with WFH in mind (we also moved to a cheap part of the country from London; for the price of our house you could get a 2 bed flat in London).

My employer is fully remote, and has been since the company was founded about 8yrs ago. We've got about 90 employees. Most of them are young professionals in 1 or 2 bed flats. Lots have their desks set up in their bedroom or living room. Not ideal but preferable to a long, exhausting and expensive commute.

I love being wfh, but my house is pretty small and not designed for it. No commute and doing compressed hours means I can work 4 days and be paid ft, before I was out the house way longer 5 days a week as I have a 90 minute commute to the nearest office. I don't think I could work in an office full time ever again. I'd have to drop hours if I had to travel in as I couldn't cope with being out the house for such long hours with young children.

Small house, but I make it work. Work life balance is so much better.