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 DH WFM and I hate it, he's in our lounge, with his meetings, tapping and stuff. He loves it, his MH has improved and he's happy.

I just want our lounge back, my days off to sit on the sofa and watch crap TV without a zoom meeting on tap/tap/tap going on.

I love no-one in the house for a day, so I can properly clean and sort stuff out.
It also feels like he's taken over a bit more of the house.

Yes, I think this is actually the problem. And I'd add size of rooms. Ours are very small.

The poster who said if you have a bedroom you have a place to work .. our bedroom contains a bed, 2 chests of drawers, a built in wardrobe and just about enough space to walk round. The only way to work in there would be to sit on the bed with a small fold up desk rammed against the chest of drawers (and even then you'd have to climb over the bed to get in/out, which isn't really a sustainable long term practice.

We have 4 of us potentially working at home. I suspect this isn't that unusual if you have older/young adult children?

There is one space downstairs which we've made into a permanent office space.

We also use the dining table as a workspace.
DD's room is too small for a desk, so she uses a desk in the 4th bedroom which is even smaller (so wouldn't fit a 2nd desk). DS can fit a desk in his room, but he spends enough time in his room as it is and I don't think it's a great idea for him to spend most of the day living/sleeping/working in the same small space.

So we have 3 work spaces and 4 people, and one of the workspaces has to be constantly set up/down.

I guess it doesn't help that we all have jobs where you genuinely need monitors so we need a decent sized desk; it takes time to switch the workspace over from one person's configuration to another's so we try not to do it too often; and we all have jobs that involve lots of teleconferences so can constantly hear each other. DH trains as part of his job, and DS and I both reckon we can now present his training courses as we've heard them so many times!

Judging by the responses most people love the lack of commute so much that they don't care about their home work space; are the only one at home and/or have enough space for dedicated work areas.

I do wonder if my problem will become more common if wfh persists, particularly with more and more young people unable to move out due to cost.

@missingeu I often think the person working from home loves it, but their family sometimes have rather different views!

I'd turn this question around - did the people who hate WFH have their own offices and easy commutes and colleagues who left them alone?

No. Although I like my commute rather than seeing it as annoying wasted time, and while my colleagues can sometimes be nattery they have nothing on a small child racing about while the other parent chases it, or my MIL popping in for the latest instalment of Guess Who’s Died.

I kind of agree op. Most of my friends/colleagues who WFH have a dedicated work office. I live in a 3 bed house with my 2 dc so no spare room or office. I have carved out a small space in my kitchen/diner for a desk but I didn't want it to take over the dining room, rendering it unusable so it's really too small for my needs but will do. When my dc get home from school/college I am usually disturbed due to the location of my desk so have to be careful what I plan in my diary after 4pm.

Having said that, as much as I hated lockdowns and being forced to WFH at the start, I do prefer it now as being a single parent I have been able to up my hours at work but still be around for the dc. I also don't have the 1-1.5 hour commute a day.

But yes, an actual office would be amazing!

3 bed semi and love it - but DP and DDs out at work/school

When I WFH during lockdown my DH was between jobs, so I got the "study" (aka box room) for my use. Now he's permanently WFH if I want to WFH too I have to use the dining table. It's fine, but I couldn't do it on a long term basis. Having any sort of separate space to shut away at the end of the day is vital for me as otherwise work takes over. I need my private space, away from work.

My DB and DSIL still work from home - no spare room, she's on a desk they bought for the living room, he's on the dining table. There's nowhere for the computers to go, so they're always in view, even at the weekend. They've got used to it now and still enjoy WFH, but I know my SIL would dearly love for them to have a home office, so they're currently thinking about moving to a bigger house.

@gannett i generally prefer the office but don't even have my own desk, let along my own office - this isn't the eighties! Not even our CEO has her own office.

As for being interrupted my job mainly involves a lot of interaction and discussion with colleagues so I don't see it as interruption, I see it as part of my job. If I do need to get my head down on drafting or deep thinking then I either WFH or use one of the quiet areas we have for such things - as I would pre pandemic.

I will admit my commute is fairly easy. A 15 min train journey woth a 10 min ealk either end.

I love WFH. Two adults and a 3 yr old. Live in a small 2 bed house. I either work at the kitchen table or have a fold out table in my bedroom. It's a squeeze but certainly beats commuting twice a day and rushing around!

@JudgeRudy Thankfully neither of us need to speak to clients very often and very little of what we do is confidential but thankfully we both had decent noise cancelling headphones to make use of when necessary.

Why don’t you go back to the office?

some people are never happy are they?

Some people can't though? My Mum's place of work have given up 3/4 of their office space now and put everyone on permanent flexible working with 1 pre-determined day a week in the office and 4 at home.

Obviously she could look for another job, but she's been in a very niche role 25 years and just turned 60 so I don't know what her options would be.

Tiny house, love wfh.
I was happy to sacrifice some furniture and storage in other spaces to make room for desks and computer chairs, so we were comfortable for the third of a day Monday-Friday that we spend working from home
The space sacrifice is worth not having to commute and the better work life balance, the dogs happier, the house is cleaner, my weekends are more free, I eat healthier, it works great for us.
i wouldn’t take a job that was full time from the office ever again.

YABU to imply a 4 bed house is not a big house.

I've WFH for 13 years in (in order!):
Tiny 2 bedroom mid-terrace Barrat home. The second bedroom was the size of a cupoboard.
A 2 bedroom bungalow.
A 3 bed large detached house with a big conservatory and a second reception room.
A 3 bed old cottage (current home) where I work from the spare room.

Definitely not living in a palace but I have always been the only one WFH in the house.

I enjoy working from home, the only time I didn’t was the first couple of weeks after adoption leave finished as I was a bit jealous my husband had all day with our daughter and I missed her.

We (family of four) live in a three bed flat, living area completely open plan, on the days we both work one of us works in the babies room and the other at the desk in the living area.

4 of us in 3 bed, desk is in bay window in living room. Partner works from home 2-3 days a week and uses kitchen table. Drop kids at 9, pick them up at 3 and keep going. It works beautifully. Would love a loft conversion and office, but it isn't happening any time soon.

One bedroom flat and I love WFH. I bought a folding desk at the start of lockdown so can quickly fold it away when not in use.

I don't think many people pretend WFH is "perfect" - but then office working isn't perfect either, in fact overall it's a damned sight worse than WFH.

You have to look at the overall picture. I think that some people are just not suited to WFH full time, but equally people like me are just not suited to going into the office five days per week. I prefer to make a small compromise at home to the time and expense of going into an office where it's noisy, disruptive and harder to get my job done.

DH and I have a 3 bed semi but we built an extension and included an office (that meets planning as a 4th bed downstairs). The room is long so we work in there together with a divider screen between us to keep an element of our 'own' office spaces each. I used to work from our bedroom bay window and that was rough, seeing my desk while in bed meant my mind was always occupied with work.

I much prefer small, purposeful rooms to larger or open plan ones.

I'd love a pantry, a utility, a laundry and wardrobe room upstairs, and a couple of small offices above big bedrooms any day.

My WFH office is the smallest room - much nicer than sharing a space.

I WFH and we have a big 4 bed detached. I do work from a desk in my bedroom, but the goal is renovating the garage to include an office/spare room and additional bathroom.

Before we moved, I worked from a teeny tiny desk that I had under my son's cabin bed! Honestly it was fine, I don't really need much space I work exclusively on my laptop and only use a notebook rarely.

Erm...I don't live in a 4 bed detached, it's a semi-detached. Don't know why I put that!

As you've also pointed out since the first post, there are more variables than just the size of house.

We don't have a particularly large house but the outside space is large. We had an outbuilding which was used for storage for many years - we renovated it in Summer 2020 to make it into 2 office rooms with a toilet. The dedicated workspace away from the main house has inevitably made a huge difference to working from home.

The main reason I love it so much though is the lack of commute - when I worked at NHS hospital, it was 1h20mins door to door. I would leave at 6.50am to start work for 8.30 and return at 5.30pm. I would need to use all wrap around care available just to make it work. I now do the school run and am back at my desk for 8.30 ready to work. School is close so if there is an assembly or parent event, I can block out the time, attend and work late. I miss the social contact but am at a stage where my family life trumps the social aspect of work so will compromise for the next few years.

As a junior in my career, I would have hated every second of it. The social aspect was SO important in building my career and I would not have a fraction of the contacts I have if I had been isolated at home.

My office is a tiny box room, just me and my fish. I love it.

Who are all these people with constantly noisy colleagues? I am currently sat in an open plan office and I can hear a low hum of people chatting a couple of desk banks away from me but mostly people just have their heads down working.

If it does get noisy then I use headphones.

I think a lot of places don't seem to design offices properly. We have separate spaces for meetings and phone calls as well as a canteen/relaxation space for people to eat lunch and take breaks. I think that definitely helps.

Also free tea and coffee.

I live in a small 3 bed cottage with'y dh and dd. I have the small box room as my office and love it. Sometimes when everyone is home it can get a bit noisy, but both my dh and dd realise this and are quiet if I tell them I need them to be when I'm in a meeting.