Not everyone thinks of including a home office in their houses’ floor plans. Most homeowners only realize the need when they start
working home-based or bring a lot of office work at home. Fortunately for some, they have enough space in their house to spare an area for an office, or they have a larger lot to build an extension for a new room.
However, for those who have limited spaces in their homes, it may become a problem to assign a sufficient area for an office. That’s why they have to settle for subsistence spaces that can be turned into an office, such as the attic, a little corner in the living room, a mini-office in the bedroom, and the garage.
While many people may find difficulty in moving, lest working, in these limited spaces, others seem to have found a way to make the small area work to their benefit.
Converting the Garage into a Home Office
A home garage tends to be narrow and elongated, particularly if it were built to accommodate only one vehicle. If you want to convert this space into a functional home office, you must first consider how you’re going to deal with the room’s situation, and that includes deciding how you will manage the limited space.
If your garage is currently occupied by various storage materials, you should first determine what you are going to do with them and where you are going to store them. Considering this situation, you can either set up a divider in the garage and simply store the non-office materials on the other side, or build a whole new shed in the lawn where you can store them.
If you’ve decided on how to deal with the things stored in your garage, begin taking them out in a flat surface and sort them into categories, generally by which ones are still needed in the future and which ones can be thrown or given away. More specific categories can be established for the to-be-kept materials.
To avoid being tagged as a hoarder, set up some strict rules about things that you need to be rid of, such as “Things that haven’t been used in more than a year have to go,” and “Broken things that I promised to fix more than 5 months ago but still haven’t have to go.” This will totally help in freeing up more space in the garage, which means more room for your home office.
Once you’ve settled the pre-occupants of the room into a new place, it’s time to get the garage ready for your office. A typical garage would be lacking of many features that a normal room would have, so you may have to make some modifications before taking all your furniture and office materials in.
- If your garage doesn’t have a door to the main house, consider installing one. That way you won’t have to use the garage door.
- Keep the garage door closed and cover it with blankets or curtains in the interior to seal the heat.
- If possible, create a window in the garage to allow natural light in and conserve electricity.
- Make sure that the room is properly ventilated, and invest on cooling and heating devices.
- Make sure the walls, ground and doors are properly insulated by sealing gaps and cracks.
- To make the room look more like an office and less like a garage, install some outdoor carpeting.
- Sufficient lighting is necessary in order to mitigate the dark ambiance projected by the garage.
- Clean the walls and repaint or apply wallpaper.
Once you’re all done with the room modifications, you can bring all your office stuff in!
- Design the room but avoid too-distracting elements that are not conducive for work.
- Opt for comfortable furniture pieces but also consider the dimensions of the room in ratio to your furniture.
- If the room is particularly small, opt for a vertical design and invest on dual-purpose storage devices, such as a table-cabinet.
- Make sure you have enough outlets for your electronic devices and keep chords safely organized.
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