In 9 months I hope to be in a situation where I need to setup my home office. This is a working from home office, not a business. We are currently building a new home and I have a room 13 x 10 dedicated to an office. I'm debating making this an office / outdoor room instead. Dual purpose. One big reason is that I'm not sure where else I will put my hunting and fishing stuff. Have about 6 deer heads to think about as well. So, it has to be my office and could be more. Right now, I'm thinking of how I would pull a dual purpose room off. There is no closet in the room. Just four walls, one with a door an one with two windows. Longer term, I might be able to carve out a portion of the basement. As long as it stays dry and we insulate the walls. That will not happen for a long time. I could also use part of the garage. Here again, in the short term...I can not predict how that will be. Anyone else have a dual home office / outdoor room? Of just an outdoor room which is about that same size? Would love some ideas and suggestions. Even pictures if you feel like posting. I'm not concerned about "distractions" while working but, do need a solid/comfortable workspace.
Here is the wall behind my desk in my home office ( I work out of the house). It didn't start out like this. I ran out of wall space and floor space in my "outdoor" room so thing have slowly started to spill over into my office. lol! I am getting a little spring cleaning in so things are kind of a mess. I'll try to take some more pics later this evening.
I work from home quite a bit, and in my 2 previous homes, I had dedicated rooms that were my office. I found that I spent the majority of my time in my office, away from the wife and kids, next thing you know, it's time to go to bed. In this home, I just made a comfortable place downstairs that I can take phone calls, get some quiet time, maybe squeeze in a nap. etc. when needed. I do everything form a laptop anyway, I like this solution much better. But my kids are older now, so i don't have to be concerned with babies crying while I'm on the phone either. That being said, depending on your situation, I vote for just a comfortable place in the house where you can go to get stuff done rather than a full blown "office". Nice comfortable leather chair, and some nicely placed deer mounts doesn't sound bad.
I appreciate the experienced feedback. I do have two young kids, <10 years of age. One is in school however, the other is not yet and we have a couple years till than happens. I did the whole dinning room thing and it worked as needed at one house. In our current place, I have a room with a small desk crowded by hunting and fishing stuff. Bit tight but, it works. Can fiddle with anything while running a conference call. Can close the door and worry very little about the noise in the house. It's down stairs so, it can look messy as no one sees it. I do often find myself sitting on the couch for a change of pace and warmth of the fireplace when it's quite in the house. I already know what you mean about being home but, not seen all day. That happens now however, much nicer then the commute on top of not being around all day. Being in the technology field, you never really shut off anyway. I do need a home base with a door. Don't need a full blown office. Do need an outdoor room I'm starting to realize now though that by not having a closet in the office...I can't hang my hunting gear up. No where to hide the ugly stuff...It would look odd having a nice office room and junk all over the place...as my room proudly looks now. Rubbermaid containers sticked three high. Poles hanging from the ceiling. Wife might not like the office looking like the garage... High class problems I guess.
In response to your 2nd post....Don't overlook high quality tool boxes to hold you stuff and basically be your closet. I've seen it pulled off on more than 1 occasion in some really nice homes. It can look really cool when done right. Also, check out a website called Houzz.com you're bound to find some inspiration there.
The room doesn't have a closet but you could consider putting built in closet / shelves on one of your 10' walls. it could provide you a closet to hang your hunting clothes, and storage for work and play stuff.
ill have an office/hunting stuff room... I dont work from home but like a desk to throw stuff down and files for the drawers. Ill have desk on one wall with my chair, small 3 drawer side table for TV, my ammo cabinet that i also put small stuff like bino and flashlights and knives. thats all i really need to go on the walls and the desk is huge so itll take up most of a wall and their is a closet on another wall. Im really struggling on if i will squeeze my extra recliner in there, just dnt think ill have room. Ill use plastic bins for clothes and hang clothes up and use the shelves... i will shud have room for my bows and what not in the corners . ive got too much crap, but i refuse to throw anything away
I have a extra table with 2 extra chairs I try to keep clean for projects. All my shelf storage is in the other room. I have two shelves made out of 2X4s and MDF. They are 16 feet long and 3 shelves high. I made them specifically for storage containers.
I have a small room, maybe 8x12 that has my computer for work but also all my bow stuff. Two work benches, my bows, arrows, stands, gear, etc. It takes some organizing to fit it all and still have room to work. As you can see I am slowly remodeling it. Hopefully I finally finish it this year lol. One wall, my stands (LW hand climber, LW Assault and 4 sticks) get stored beside the bench: Opposite wall: Bow storage. I only still have the recurve, the two compounds have been given to nephews: Gear storage beside my desk. There are 3 of those grey containers with my hunting clothes in it. This is opposite the bow wall:
My office, does that count? If your in the process of building a new house, the contractor could easily frame up a closet in the office room for u. Or are u concerned about the space that will be lost from the closet?
Actually, it had a closet in it and we canned it to expand the pantry. So, I can't reverse that change. I can see how it would look with a wall to closet on one side. I am a bit concerned about the space if I take 3ft away with a closet. Make it a 10x10 which is not too bad considering all the closet room I am gaining to hide hunting and fishing stuff. I think I am struggling more with the fact that even though this is my office...it is on the main floor of the house. Ideally, I would want it to feel like a workshop and office. That look might not gel well. Hard to picture a work bench (which I would want) in there. If this were the same room upstairs or in the basement I might not care about looks, only function. I think I need to start thinking about having some of my junk in the "office" and carving out part of the garage for the workbench type things. That would also be fine for the large storage boxes. MichiHunter - Love the link to houzz Thanks! Coop - Thanks for the pictures.
[/QUOTE] Love that turkey mount. Might have to steal that if I ever get one mounted. Waiting on a double beard for a full mount.
