Who said that home offices had to be ugly? A tour of offices in large companies showed us that times have changed. Work spaces are being redesigned, colour is being added and clutter removed.
Look at your children registered for post-secondary studies. They have no qualms about decorating their offices. Increasingly limited by self-employed workers, they let their personalities shine through the decoration. By doing so, they are setting up a work space that is likely to inspire and motivate them.
Your home office is more than a workspace. It’s a refuge where the only dictatorship allows is efficiency. After all, environment is one of the key factors in work.
If you prefer a stripped-down office, or if your office is as exciting as a room in a monastery and you feel good and are efficient in your work, stay on the same path.
If not, let your imagination run wild.
The wall is the first thing to think about, since that is usually the first surface you look at outside your workstation.
The ecologically minded will opt for a stone wall, wood furniture or a mural that evokes nature. Those who are passionate about current events will choose a print of various newspaper articles. Technologists will opt for a pixelated wall. Art fans will set their sites on a canvas that will become a vast wall mural or even a work painted on the floor.
Other workers or students will look for sober arabesques or photographic enlargements. Those whose work requires constant deductions and analyses may choose a mural evoking England, with Sherlock Holmes in the middle of an investigation.
Let’s push things a little further. A metallic wall that reflects the changing light of mini-projectors hidden behind a ceiling beam. The wall is a mix of green, blue, red and yellow.
Seen in an office: a slightly curved wall under a subtly inclined ceiling above a wave-shaped desk. The colour? Burgundy.
All furniture has its place in the home office: from a rocking chair to a moulded plastic chair from the 1970s, long series from the 1950s for storage to rattan or Louis XV style furniture if that’s what you like.
Hotel lobby, nightclub, Alice in Wonderland, movie studio, Star Wars, so many ambiances in which you can invest if they make you more efficient in your work.
We recently helped a young psychologist decorate her new office. She had selected a world maps theme: desk blotter, globe and posters. The walls are cream and sand to maximize the light and universality.
If a noble grey is the choice of certain self-employed workers, a frankly modern red and white look is echoed by others, as is mix of tangerine orange and black.
The goal is to liven up the atmosphere while favouring concentration and relaxing moments. Between creative space and space limited to conveying knowledge, everyone will find what suits them best.
Photos: iStockphoto and Shutterstock