I Made Room for Work. I Still Wanted It to Feel Like Home.

This part of the house was originally meant to be garage space. Early in the process, we decided to divide the garage and bring part of it into the living area. That decision created the space for my home office downstairs.

We eventually chose to put Bas’s workspace upstairs, in a separate room he can close off, while I would work here. We each have our own place, which matters when both of us are working from home.

I had already experienced the alternative during the pandemic, when I worked for a different employer. My laptop lived on the dining table, with all the complications of trying to make that arrangement work. I developed shoulder and neck discomfort during that period. That hasn’t been my experience with this setup.

I wanted to give work a proper place in the new house. I also wanted to keep enjoying the house when work was over.

The upholstered screen around my desk is from IKEA. It is acoustic, and I like the sheltered feeling it gives me while I work, but the first reason I chose it was very straightforward: I thought it was gorgeous.

The colour fits our living room beautifully. From the room, the desk feels integrated into the interior rather than like an office has been deposited in the middle of it. That was important to me.

There are plenty of hours when I am happy to be looking at my work. I don’t need the furniture to keep bringing it up later.

Sitting behind the panels feels a little like being in a cocoon. I still have this place within our living space, but around the desk there is a sense of enclosure that I really enjoy. The acoustic panels are part of that feeling; I’m describing how it feels to sit here, rather than promising they make an open space soundproof.

The screen gives me a way to have a downstairs office that I love using and a living room that still feels like ours.

My desk is electrically adjustable, so I can work standing up as well as sitting down. I appreciate being able to change its height instead of arranging myself around whatever happens to be available.

A separate keyboard matters to me for the same reason. I can pull it towards me and put it where typing feels comfortable, rather than having my hands tied to the position of a laptop. The large external screen gives me the space I like to work with, too.

When I am working on Essy’s, I use this setup for the website. For my regular job, I connect the large screen to my work laptop. With the devices I have here, I can work across three screens.

That is particularly useful when I am working through projects. I like being able to have the things I need in front of me, with enough room to see what I am doing.

It is a substantial working setup behind that soft upholstered screen. I enjoy that combination very much.

My working days at home can include plenty of meetings. I also often choose to work from home because I need to develop a project and concentrate properly, which can be harder to do in the office.

This is where I do that work, and it is also where I work on the website. Both need thought, attention and a setup I am happy to spend time using.

For my job, I work with Microsoft 365, including Copilot. In my own time, ChatGPT and Claude Cowork are part of how I work on things and automate tasks.

The practical details of those workflows deserve their own stories. Here, the important point is that this corner supports the work I actually do. The screens and keyboard earn their space. So does the feeling that I can settle in and get on with something.

Being ambitious about my work and wanting a cosy place to do it have always seemed perfectly compatible to me.

I try to keep things organised, but I still want the desk to feel very much like me.

There are Miffy things here because they make me happy. That includes a Miffy plant pot with an aloe vera in it. I find those little details cheerful and comforting, and I enjoy having them around while I work.

I don’t see why the pleasure I take in the rest of our home should stop at the edge of my desk. I spend real time here. I want to like what is around me.

There is also an IKEA trolley beside the workspace. It holds work supplies, but it has another job: gift-wrapping things, birthday cards and stamps live here, too. When I buy a present for someone, I usually wrap it at the desk.

Those are exactly the things that otherwise end up lying around in the living room, which I really dislike. Giving them a place here lets the desk be useful for ordinary life as well as work.

A birthday card does not need its own department. It does need somewhere to go.

We had wanted to avoid extension leads. Then the equipment accumulated, some of the cables were too short, and the arrangement started pulling the curtains up.

That looked awful.

So, despite the original intention, I use an extension lead. I included a photograph because it is part of the actual setup. It is the one thing here that still irritates me, although I am otherwise very happy working in this space.

I would have preferred the cables to work out neatly without it. They didn’t, and the solution lets the curtains hang as they should.

Even a carefully planned house eventually has to negotiate with a plug.

The result I value most is quite simple: when I finish working, it feels finished.

I don’t have a separate room downstairs to shut behind me. Instead, the way the desk blends into our interior helps me stop noticing it as work once I have stepped away. I can enjoy the living room without looking across and feeling that my job is still sitting there waiting for me.

If you are planning a workspace in a shared room, that is the question I would start with: how do you want the room to feel when you have finished for the day?

For me, the answer shaped everything from using part of the garage to choosing that upholstered screen. Then came the desk, the screens, the storage and the little things that make sitting here a pleasure.

I have somewhere I genuinely love working. Afterwards, I get to be at home.