How To Set Up A Fabulous Home Office

Work is a blessing and an intrusion. What we are suggesting here is how to use furniture to make you happy and be fabulous working from home. This will involve avoiding “officey looking” furniture as well as making thoughtful choices about what furniture and accessories you allow into your “New Reality” work zones.  

In terms of furniture, office spaces are an exercise in second-bestery and that’s not what we want for you. In the office, employers have to provide furniture that is hard-wearing and durable. There has to be a nod towards health and safety. As for the design, as long as it does not say “May Cause Carpal Tunnel Syndrome” in red capital letters, your employer is perfectly happy with the look. That is most definitely not what we want for you! We want your home office to be fabulous, just like you are.  

You deserve to be happy in your home office

During the first lockdown our customers entertained and shocked us with stories of kids doing homework sitting on milk crates, as well as folk sleeping on the floor. A tragedy when we had seats, tables and over 1,000 mattresses available to buy online. If you think that working from home will be a part of your future, rest assured that our six discount furniture outlets have loveable, stylish items that will help you create a home office that you will love.

Benefits of office life

For many people the office was a space where they could express a side of themselves that did not fit with parenthood. Dressing smartly, talking to adults and avoiding family demands suited many workers.  Picking up a latte in the morning, the commute home with music and podcasts made the work more bearable. The loss of the workplace will have affected many people by taking small but important pleasures.    

10 Items That Will Bring Some Happy To Your Home Office

1.  A word on choosing a desk for your home office

Right, desks, I am not having this discussion again. Desks in Ireland are as rare as hen’s teeth. I don’t know who or what to blame - Brexit, Donald Trump, Black Friday. Who knows? Who cares? But I am telling you now, obsessing over office furniture is NOT going to help you to create a fabulous office at home. Get a table.

“Officey” office furniture is not the secret of working from home. Especially desks.

2.  Tables 

You are well able to choose your own table. The rule is if you can eat your dinner off it, it’s probably OK.  What’s wrong with a nice dining table for your laptop and papers? Bear in mind that some  Irish people have been using the ironing board and the baby  changing table.

Our dining table and chair sets are versatile and attractive. If and when work-places open up again you are not stuck with a dreary desk.

3.  Choosing a chair is key

Having just said that you don’t want your fab home filled with ‘officey’ furniture, we are now going to contradict ourselves and say the opposite. An office chair with adjustable height is a good call. Mind your back. 

4.  Does your office need a sleep zone?

Let’s be honest. We know that office, college and factory car parks all over Ireland conta people having their “car-naps”. We imagine that most offices would work better if workers could have naps during the working day. One advantage of working from home is that you can have your own version of the Spanish siesta. Just one more aspect of the new normal we will miss when we go ‘back to normal’. A sofa or sofa bed inside your office is money well spent.  

Why should we be clinging to schedules that suited farmers in the days before mechanization? Let’s hope that the next ‘new normal’ has more respect for sleep.

5.  A mirror make your home office look fab

In your new fabulous work space you will need to check what you look like.  

Why not pick a beautiful gold Indian mirror and start your working day by giving yourself a smile? I presume you have a hairbrush and lipstick just underneath your computer screen for the Zoomies, no?  Now add some bling to your wall.

6.  Choose a cheerful clock

Do not allow a grim clock from the office supplies store into your home. Place a giant clock in your eyeline. Do not check the time by picking up your phone. You’ll get sucked into Tik Tok, YouTube or Amazon and you’ll forget that you were checking if you had time to change your top for the Zoom call. Time’s up. This is a productivity tip as well as a style one!

7.  Why you need a bathroom cabinet in your home office

The rule here is that, during working hours, you are staying in the work zone. You know yourself what items you want near you. Try to avoid breaking your work trance by straying into your home and all the chores it wants you to do.

The other rule is to choose storage items that suit your look. A slender, grey bathroom cabinet might suit your paperwork and stationery. A dainty bedside locker is a nicer eyeful than a metal filing cabinet. All our six clearance outlets have storage items that you just might love.

8.  Shoe storage

You have to think of the office as separate from your home space. Keep your trainers near the workspace so that you are not tempted to wander around your distracting home looking for them. Break up work with exercise.  

9.  Artwork

If we said to you last year that the eejit from the office would be pointing a camera into your house and filming you, I doubt you would have believed us. But Zoom meetings are a new necessity.  

Irish people are rightly private when it comes to their homes. If we just  say the words “Clare Byrnhed” you’ll understand the lengths people will go to to avoid Zoom scrutiny. And that’s fair enough. If you feel you have little choice regarding ‘cameras-on’ meetings then angle your computer to a nice wall with a picture.  

10.  Boundary signals

In a home office you have every right to choose your own ornaments. Your personal choices are important. In an office you must be careful not to offend but at home you can express your interests even if they do include Elvis, nude statues or Hello Kitty.

There are two aspects to this. You are permitted to choose your ornaments and you can use them as signals. So, if the light up statue of Donald Trump as a donkey is switched on, that means mammy is working. If it is switched off, the family may interrupt. I exaggerate the power of your hope of not being interrupted. But you can see my point about enjoying the freedom of the fact that the work space is yours. Your employer is less able to dictate the look of your work space. Be yourself. 

Of course you are grateful that you have work. Use furniture to create a work space that is personal, uplifting and designed just for you. Every space is an opportunity and your home office can be every bit as enjoyable as the shed phenomenon. Lead the trend! Be fabulous.