Whether you work from home or want to create a stylish study space for your children, choosing the right office furniture is key to maximizing your productivity and ensuring you stay on task and work comfortably.
Your home office should be "an environment where you want to sit down and work," says interior designer Melissa Leclair of Leclair Decor in Ottawa. She and her business partner and husband, Sacha Leclair, offer their tips on choosing the right office furniture:
Light it up
A good work space should have multiple sources of lighting, including a desk lamp for task lighting, a pendant light or ceiling fixture and perhaps a soft floor lamp. If your office space contains a window, make use of natural light by positioning the desk in front of or beside it.
Think about function
"You want the office to look good, but also to be functional," says Melissa. What are the tasks you do throughout the day? Do you need a lot of space for paperwork or just a spot for a small laptop computer?
Consider what storage you will need. Do you have a lot of paperwork that you need to organize? Do you need a large filing cabinet to store documents or will your office space be largely paperless?
Mapping out the tasks you do will help you determine how much space you will need.
Location, location, location
Be creative with where you put your office. "You don't have to have the home office hidden in a bedroom anymore," says Sasha.
Many are choosing to maximize space by locating offices in living areas, tucking desks into a basement nook under a stairwell, or transforming a closet.
Go against type
Incorporating an office into your home means you can have fun choosing atypical office furniture that adds a unique design element to the room. An antique vanity or even a console table can be easily transformed into a desk.
If your desk is in a living space, use a stylish dining chair instead of a typical plush executive chair.
Think vertical
A cluttered work environment is likely to be an unproductive one. The Leclairs make use of height for storage by adding floating shelves above a desk and decorative boxes and wooden bins to hide supplies and paperwork.
--Postmedia Network Inc. 2014
