How To Transform a Spare Room into a Home Office

18 March 2020

With government advising us to work from home as much as possible due to the coronavirus, many of us will be converting our spare rooms into a home office. Working from your dining table works for a few days. But we have no idea how long this could go on for, so you’ll need somewhere practical!

If you have limited space in your home, we want to help you create a space where you can focus on work. Having a dedicated area for this will also help you switch off at the end of your working day. This can be a problem for many who are living and working in the same space.

1. Decide Where You Will Set Up Your Home Office

If you have a spare bedroom, this is an ideal starting point! This is where I have decided to set up my home office, as I won’t get distracted by other things. I can also then close the door at night, able to live in separate areas. But there are other ways you can squeeze in a desk if you don’t have room here. You may just need to be creative, such as this person who has put a desk under the stairs! We have also seen others put desks in their hallways, in cupboards or in utility rooms.

Desk under the stairs

2. Get What You Need Together

Working From Home Essentials:

You can find a range of other things to help you work from home here. You will quite possibly have most, if not all, of these things around the house. It doesn’t matter if they don’t all match – focus on what will be useful to you and what you can pull together quickly.

3. Clear and Clean Your Space

In my spare room, I already had a desk. However, as you can see, this area had become a bit of a dumping ground which I’d never found the time to clean up! We also have under desk pedestal drawers. These don’t match, but are useful to have beside the desk for storing files, documents, notebooks, etc in. This set up is ideal as it neatly fits in the corner of the room. Despite the room being small, there is still plenty of room for a bed and moving around.

So the first major step is clearing and cleaning! Arrange any mess on the desks on to shelves and neatly put them away, putting everything which you don’t use into bin bags. Clean the area properly, using wood polish for your desk. Use

4. Set Up Your Desk With What You Need For Work

Now your desk is nicely cleared, arrange your work station. If possible, set it up in the exact same way that you would have it arranged in your work office. This will help you focus more and feel in a working mindset when sat in your home office.

Top Home Office Tips

a) Make Sure You Have a Webcam

If you don’t already have this, it is extremely important to remember to purchase a webcam for your home office. It is likely you’ll be arranging meetings over video conference software such as Zoom or Skype. We strongly recommend the SANDSTROM SWCAMHD19 Full HD Webcam which is shown more closely below. This is only around £20 and is great quality for both voice and video.

If you are still working with others but are likely to be having more conference calls, we recommend getting a voice conference unit. This will be very beneficial for clarity of speech.

b) Have a Comfortable Chair

It can be very easy to simply stick a dining table chair at your desk to do the work. But this won’t be comfortable enough for working at home. Buy a desk chair which will be supportive and comfortable such as a mesh office chair.

c) Keep The Rest of The Room Tidy

This is a critical part of working from home. If the room is a mess, you will not feel ready to focus and settle in work. It has been shown that a tidier office increases productivity and lessens anxiety. Therefore keep the spare room bed made, neaten up any shelves, and chuck out any rubbish cluttering up the room for a fresh look and feel.

Show Us Your Home Office Solutions

We’d love to see what home office ideas you come up with! Tag us in your instagram photos for a chance to feature on our social media.

And if you need anything for your home office, visit this page of essentials.

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