Creating a home office

By Gian-Philip Andreas Jun 23, 2011, 3:06 GMT

Munich - Today's living rooms serve many purposes from lounging to entertaining, but when they also have to be arranged to make room for a home office or even just a desk, space can be tight.

The need for office furniture in the home is tied directly to the demands of the information age. More and more office jobs have shifted to the home.

People who occasionally have to work at home or who regularly sit at a computer to take care of correspondence can't escape thoughts of possibly setting up a home office. When there is only a little bit of space, multifunction furniture and a few tweaks can help.

Custom-made office furniture has its price and isn't the best solution when a small workspace is all that's necessary. Just a few resources that can be assembled from different makers can help.

'A table top that is at least 80 centimetres deep is a must and you should also invest in an ergonomic, adjustable chair,' said Siglinde Sonnenholzer, an adviser who helps people organize their homes.

This workspace, which could be like a regular table on legs or fastened to the wall with hinges, provides enough space for a computer or a laptop. Practically any niche - from a pantry to the dead end of an entry hallway - can be set up this way.

The pantry is a good place to hide a noisy printer, and Sonnenholzer said a curtain or folding screen can be used to conceal the workspace. People who live in older buildings can extend their deep window panes to create a workspace, she added.

Inside one's own four walls the choice of materials is a matter of taste, but not all are suitable for office use. Desks with glass tops, for example, are impractical, said Barbara Schwaibold, spokeswoman for a furniture-makers association in Wiesbaden, Germany. One reason is that glass is cold and therefore not a comfortable place to rest the forearms and wrists.

When a desk is needed just for looking through the post and bills, a high desk or one that folds into a wall are solutions to consider. A version offered by Lambert called Giovanni opens into a bar as well as a desk.

Some high tech offices appear at the touch of a button, shifting half of a kitchen counter around and revealing space on the other side. The company Haefele introduced just such a multifunction table in January. A bar was on one side and a workspace for a computer was on the other. The piece was inspired by tight spaces in small apartments, but also by changes in lifestyles.

'Just as today we all expect everything possible from our mobile phones, multifunctionality has established itself in all aspects of our life,' Annette Blank, a spokeswoman for the company, said.

If only a little desktop is available and it must serve other purposes after work, everything should lie in one area. Then it can all be whisked away in a single stroke when the table has to be cleared, said Sonnenholzer. A hanging list and files are recommended so that piles of papers don't stack up.