Remember the study?
Back in the pre-pandemic world, having an extra room in your apartment meant turning it into a study.
Have an unused room? “That could turn into our study!”
Your guest room came with an abundant amount of extra space?
“Let’s turn that corner into a study. A bookshelf and a desk and we’re good to go!”.
We used this part of our home to show off some of our treasured reads, satiate our love for stationery, and safely keep our essential documents in locked cabinets. You would pop into this room once in a blue moon to shoot out a late-night email or finish that presentation you couldn’t complete at the office. Mostly, this part of your home was not a focus, and not designed with daily use in mind.
Interestingly, many smaller-sized apartments did not have space for a dedicated study and this often meant using the dining table, or the bedroom to catch up on post-office work, or to moonlight through a passion project.
In many ways, the study room was a luxury that you could choose to have — until the virus came into the picture and changed this, as it did everything.
The study is now a home office
Our study is no longer a secondary space; it has turned into a home office, in which we spend our nine to fives - and on some days our nine to nines. From juggling Zoom meetings and presentations to quick work lunches, to burning the midnight oil to meet a deadline — we’ve spent an enormous part of the last few months cooped up in our home offices. While some of us have the luxury of a designated room, with a desk and a chair, many of us have turned our kitchens, couches, and bedrooms into makeshift work nooks.
While this could be a great hack in the short term, we believe it won’t cut it in the long term. It’s undeniable that work-from-home has blurred the lines between your personal and work life; not having a comfortable space to work in can make it all the more blurry.
Spending long hours at an improvised workstation, like your couch, or a straight-backed dining chair can lead to sitting in an awkward posture which could strain your body. Medical experts have pointed out that poor ergonomic practices like these could potentially lead to premature disc disease or pain in the back and neck due to an injured spine.
Dipping productivity levels and an increase in fatigue can also be attributed to camping out in low-on-ergonomics parts of your home. There’s also the slipping into the occasional nap, which let’s face it, isn’t going to help your long to-do list.
The home office: a bare necessity
Having a physical home office, geared with an ergonomic chair with lumbar support and a functional work desk, is now a must-have to ensure you remain in the pink of your health so you don’t lose out on hours that could have been spent more productively.
We recommend setting up the desk in a sunlit corner of your home. Personalize it with a planter, books, and even a photo frame from your last holiday (because we could all use a little travel inspiration right now). Station this home office as far from your bedroom as possible. Once you call it a day, and you physically leave this room, you can kick back and relax in the ‘rest of your home’.
Tip: Renting out office furniture can be a smarter option than buying. You’ll bring home stunning furniture at easy-on-the-pocket prices, and enjoy the flexibility of keeping it for as long as you like. If you eventually don’t feel like parting ways with your rented furniture, at CasaOne, you’ll have the option to buy it too!
Just like work-from-home, having a productivity-inducing home office has become the new norm. Drawing clear boundaries between this space and the rest of your home, and planning your day in advance will help you reap the many incredible benefits of remote work.
Unsure of how your home office will turn out? Try CasaOne’s Design Consultations! We give you 2D and 3D visualizations of our rental furniture placed in your home, to give you a crystal clear picture of the final look. Pick any of our pieces that catch your fancy, and we’ll show you how it can come together to form a functional home office you’ll love working out of.