Home Offices: The New Hot Home Trend

Home Offices: The New Hot Home Trend

In the age of COVID-19, home offices are replacing the "She-shed" and the "Man-cave" in homes across Philadelphia. According to a statistic I grabbed from Stucco, 1/2 of employed Americans work at home. Add with the number of homeschooled children and students of all ages demanding a designated study space, we can clearly see why this shift in what is important in our homes has occurred. 

The average person spends about 6 1/2 hours a day at their desk. That is almost equal to the time we sleep! With so much time spent in our office spaces nowadays, trends are emerging in home offices that we should all take note of. Here are the 3 that I see most in Philadelphia. 

1. Dining rooms 

If you are like me and find yourself eating dinner on the couch while watching Netflix at the end of a long day, then I bet your dining room table is your place of choice for working. Formal dining spaces are still desired but the trend is to convert the dining area into a flex space that can work double duty as an office. For smaller 1-2 bedroom homes, this is a brilliant idea. To achieve this in your home, one solution is to install lower floor cabinets with bookshelves above. The cabinet top is a workable space for entertaining and serving, under cabinets store unsightly electronics, and open bookshelves for books and decorative items.

2. Closets

For people who simply want their office out of sight and out of mind, closet conversions are another fantastic solution if you can spare one. My niece has a fantastic workspace built into her bedroom closet and her father has done the same to his home office. There are also many beautiful furnishings offering hideaway desks. The photos below show a few of these options. The same people who make custom wardrobes for closets build custom office options as well and the cost is usually under $2,000. If you do not have that money to spare, DIY kits are available online and at your local Lowes or Home Depot and cost only a few hundred dollars.

3. Basements

Now more than ever a finished basement, semi-finished basement, or even an unfinished basement space is the place of choice for that much-needed home office. Solutions are unlimited but the 2 things that make or break a basement office are the climate and the lighting. There are two important types of lighting: ambient lighting that illuminates the whole room, and task lighting that illuminates your work area and prevents eye strain. For the perfect climate consider a dehumidifier, a ceiling fan if you have the ceiling height or an oscillating floor or wall-mounted fan, and a portable heater or air conditioner if you do not already have a climate-controlled basement.

If you are thinking about buying a home in Philadelphia, remember to look for alternative spaces for your home office needs. Do not be discouraged by smaller spaces because there are many creative solutions including the ones I mentioned here. And if you are considering selling a home, it may be a good idea to stage a home office space so your prospective buyer can see how your home can accommodate all of their lifestyle needs. 

If you have a cool home office idea that you've seen, please share your ideas here and help others get back to work with some inspiration to embrace this hot new trend in home office space!