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.

My house isn’t big at all but I love wfh. I can get up over an hour later. I dint be. To schlep
out to the station. I can wear comfy clothes and I can get loads done. It also helps my work life balance. I’m in the office tomorrow and dreading it.

3 bed terrace. Spare room works fine as a home office and has a spare bed in for guests. Works fine. Saves me commute money and has allowed me to work at employers I previously wouldn’t have been able to, for higher salaries without any commuting costs for the last couple years. My current role we do a team day at head office once a month. I can expense my 2.5 hour drive there, and journey home. If it is planned to be 2 days, my work pays for a hotel booking.

I wfh admin type job, I live in a two bed flat my work space is in my bedroom. Teens have the other bedroom.

My job has been wfh since the pandemic started, the company sold the offices near me and I've only gone into the further away office twice last year.
I actually work in the spare room sitting on a king size bed with my laptop and all my things spread on the bed. It really winds DH up as he bought me a fancy desk and big monitor but I am comfortable and can lie down on my break time and have a blanket over my legs all day. 3 days per week I have lots of meetings, thank goodness for Teams backgrounds. No one knows I'm on the bed.
I hated driving to work and spending ages looking for parking. I used to have meetings in multiple locations and not get a chance to eat in between, and arrive home starving every night. Even if they were catered I often couldn't risk eating the food due to IBS, now I can pick at food when I want.
I've seen a few interesting roles advertised but I'm too comfortable as I am.
The size of my house is not huge buteven if it were small I'd work in my own bedroom rather than the office.

I love wfh because I'm disabled and I'm in significantly less pain than when I was in the office, and no longer at the whims of managers who decide I can sit at another desk today which doesn't have any of my equipment set up at it.

I wonder how many people moaning about wfh are physically able bodied.

We reconfigured our kitchen to take a big dining table then converted our dining room into an office for us both - one at each end. We try to overlap no more than once or twice a week but we can both work effectively together if we need to - it’s like an open plan office. We use headphones. The house now works really well for us and supports the way we actually live.

Love WFH. We each have a study but I only moved to mine post covid!

Yeah I'm one of the ones with the 4 bed detached. I have an office and it's great. Dh is out all day but has just applied for a job wfh, not sure how I'll cope with that 😫

@Vonniee7 i love DH dearly but he has an ‘out of the house’ job ……

I live in a two bedroom new build terrace and bloody love working from home. I'm hybrid and actually dread the days I have to go into the office because everyone is so noisy and distracting.

I don’t think WFH works if you need to be in communal space. DH works out of the box room. I currently work out of baby’s bedroom as baby is still in with us but when they move out I will put my desk in our room where the cot currently is. Our room isn’t massive but can just accommodate this.

Incorrect. I work from home 3 days per week, DH is fully remote. We live in a small 3 bedroom house with our DS.

We both work in tech, so don't need a fancy set up (although I am rather jealous of some of my colleagues on Teams calls who have a dedicated office space with multiple screens!).

We love WFH because it means more family time and less time wasted on commuting.

I WFH from a smaller house than you. I have a very small desk in the lounge.

No way could I work from the dining room. We converted bedroom 2 into an office for me and DH to share. We have a 4 bed and DS is in bedroom 3 with DSS staying in bedroom 4 when he comes up.

At my work there is a definite overlap between the people who love WFH and want to do it full time forever, and the people who have enough room at home to have have a dedicated quiet space to work from.

I don’t like WFH anyway but I think I would hate it less if I had that kind of space myself.

Small house. My "office" is under the stairs next to the hoover but i like wfh for the convenience, I'm about when the kids get back from school, can listen to my own music or podcasts etc I wear leggings and put my hair up in a bun. If one of the kids is ill I don't have to stress about time off.

They also relocated the office so I would need to pay train fares etc to go in.

I suspect it depends on what you need to work. If all you need is a laptop and a phone then that's easier to accommodate than if you need a separate space/desk etc.

I rarely work at home as my job doesn't lend itself to that easily. Two screens are essential and a proper desk/writing space. I hate trying to work from home so only do it if unwell but not enough to be off sick

I work from home and have an office so it’s lovely.

Can’t bear when DH works from home even though he also has an office. I like the solitude!

DCs like to study at the house.

I have a 3 story end terrace, and had a lodger over lockdown, so worked from the kitchen table or in my bedroom. It felt cramped for lots of reasons back then, but now I have a proper office room (lodger gone) so I can walk away from work at the end of the day. The office isn't used for anything other than work.

I agree, OP, wfh is much easier when having space dedicated to only work, and someday I hope to move to a house with a much bigger garden and a shed office down the end, so I can separate work and home even more. But having said all that, wfh had allowed me to progress my career in a way that I wouldn't have been able to otherwise, so I feel very positive about it.

I work from home as does H and we do have a spacious house. I have an office to myself which could fit 3 in if we needed to. H works from the spare bedroom upstairs. We meet for lunch.

If we were on top of each other I think I'd feel very differently!

Nope, live in a 2 bed flat and love my WFH days...I have a desk in the living room and only use a laptop so I put it away at the end of the day. DH has a desktop and two screens so his desk is in a corner of our bedroom. If DS1 needs to do homework he uses my desk after 5 or the dining table.

If I'm giving a presentation and want two screens I make sure to schedule it on an office day, otherwise I'm happy with one screen.

I would still love a big house but it's mainly because I am overwhelmed by toys and tiny bikes/scooters.

I think that was true of lockdown rather than WFH. I miss the people in WFH but it's helpful to our stage in life especially my partner getting evenings with our child. I work in child's bedroom and have a foldaway desk. Hybrid will suit me better when I eventually look for something new but full time I would want a tiny commute. I did a big commute for years and didn't mind as it also fed my social life. Now it would just be pressure and eating into my day.

Having said that, if we didn't have separate places to work - living room/child's bedroom, I would have found a new job by now. And I hated lockdown.

I WFH and we live in a tiny 2 bed, no office. Luckily all I need for my work is my laptop so I vary between the kitchen table, the sofa and sitting on the bed! I absolutely love it.

I don’t think it’s the size or number of rooms that matter - it’s having a dedicated space that isn’t simultaneously trying to be three other things.

We have a small house with small rooms, my office is 6 foot square - if I stand up too quickly my chair hits the wall behind! But I’ve got the desk set up so I can look out of the window and a door I can close for video calls or times I need to focus 100% on a task. I’m loving WFH.

I know I wouldn’t be able to work properly at the kitchen table, on the sofa or in our bedroom. I’d get distracted and be putting loads of washing on or wondering about buying new bedding.

I love WFH, or at least I loved it. I was working hybrid, only two days a week in the office but with lots of Teams catch ups, plus we'd have walking meetings outside 1-1 during covid.

Now my workplace is fully remote, I only have one meeting a fortnight, and my husband is also here permanently.

I hate having him here, because it strips out all of the benefit of WFH - solitude and concentration. He's also incredibly messy in his office bedroom. I keep mine really tidy, but his is a pit.

When we move, I'm definitely putting him in the shed.

I work from home a lot on a narrow boat...it has no internal doors (except too the loo) and my wife works from home too, often she has lots of meetings. The options are sofa or bed. I am an academic so reading/writing on my lap, with books crammed everywhere. It's not ideal. I get lonely too (work lonely, working near wife is obviously lovely, but I like feeling part of a team, I'm terrible at socialising digitally). But the pay off is more time with the kids as no commute. It is worth it for me, but I like to do about 2 days a week in the office to actually let my brain get into gear and flow a bit better. I dream of a future where I have a study!