Recommendations for Interior Designer for Relatively Small Home Office Project

So, adventures in bad timing: In 2019, I redid my living room and since I wasn’t using my home office set up, I got rid of it, and got a lot of beautiful furniture that takes up the whole room. We all know what happened next. For the last two years, I’ve been working at my dining room table. I’d like to reclaim my dining room as a dining room/social space and move my home office back to the living room. I’d like to figure out something attractive and minimally intrusive that will still allow the living room to be used as a living room. I’ve worked with a great designer in the past, but she has gotten big, and a project of this size will not be of interest to her. Any ideas welcome.

fitta

in General Discussion 3 years and 3 months ago

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workisfun | 3 years and 3 months ago

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Veronica Barrow – she’s great. Creative in tight spaces and a good listener.
hello@veronicabarrow.com

brokelin | 3 years and 3 months ago

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Don’t have a designer, but here’s my experience with home offices. For years, I put my desk against a wall, and found I never, ever sat or worked at them. Then when I was rearranging furniture in my coop to stage it for sale, a friend suggested that I place the desk in my home office so that someone sitting at it would be looking out the window. I did, it looked great, as I expected it would, but I was surprised to find that I liked working there until the sale closed, and in my next place I put my desk facing out the window at the view as well, as I saw that the previous occupant of that place had done. I worked happily at that desk for hours at a time as well. I’ve continued with that desk placement ever since.

I had always avoided putting a desk facing the window(s) because I was afraid of glare and working on computer screens (though now I recall before the age of home computers, I had desks in three places that faced the windows). What I have learned is this – the person sitting at the desk should face directly out a window (with some view, presumably) – for happiest working, the desk should not be placed against a wall between two windows, or facing a corner between two windows on the side walls – it is having the direct view outside that makes one happy to sit and work there. The desk need not be deep – 20-24 inches is fine. If needed to get access to the window to open it, or to get to houseplants placed in front of the windows, place the desk far enough from the window to allow you to walk easily between it and the window for access – this doesn’t affect the view out from the desk. Any light issues that arise are best handled with window shades.

I love the look of the wall-hung units as well, but I have learned over time that I just don’t like sitting facing a wall, – so much that I find myself sitting anyplace else to avoid sitting at my desk when it is facing a wall.

cate | 3 years and 3 months ago

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I love those ’60s-style wall-hung shelves with an integrated desk. Many versions available, including vintage, reproduction, Vitsoe, and Ikea (though Ikea seems to have recently discontinued the one I liked, alas). But in my living room, we just have a nice looking desk a friend passed on to us when they were moving to another country. It’s in a corner along a wall where you might also put a table. Here’s a Remodelista story on wall-hung units: https://www.remodelista.com/posts/10-easy-pieces-wall-mounted-shelving-systems/