Decorating Home Office with Beautiful Cottage Style

When you think about cottage style, you know that it is light and airy. You can have an office that is decorated in the light and airy decor which will leave your room looking and feeling the same way. There are a few things you will need to get this type of decor.

You need a desk that is light in color. If it is wood, then make sure that it is stained lightly. It's better if you can find a white desk and chair to start out with. Wicker is a great choice in furniture for a cottage decor. You can also choose a secretary desk that may be unfinished or can easily be sanded off and re-stained. The chair should match the desk so look for a something that is comfortable and available in white or light wood color. If you find a chair that you like, you can always add cushions to it to make it soft and comfortable.

You will need a lamp to sit on your desk. Today, you have so many choices in desk lamps so you are going to find the one you like, just give yourself enough time to find it. you will also need a lamp on any tables you have sitting in your office. You need enough light to balance out your office.

You can use a basket or crate to place your files in. a crate allows the files to stand straight up but if like baskets then use them instead. If you have a metal file cabinet, consider covering it in wallpaper. You want to make sure that you continue with a cottage style office decor.

Place some shelves up on the wall and place your software boxes that you can't throw away, books, and other important books on these shelves. They are up and out of the way and they cannot get lost in the shuffle.

Keep a basket for office supplies that can be placed on your desk or down on the floor within reach. When you need office supplies, you should be able to reach in ad grab what you need. Add area rugs like oriental rugs to your cottage style home office floor. You can create an individual look without taking over the look.

The window treatment should be simple; something see through. You want to let in enough light but you still want to have enough curtain to be decorative.

Find a wicker trash basket to put in your office. These types of baskets look great and you can line them for trash.

Complete your look with vintage frames that you can buy online, at a store, or thrift shop. You will want to snap pictures of your family and add them to the wall so you can look at them throughout your day. Dress them up in vintage clothes before you snap their pictures. Most cameras’ have a black and white choice as well as a sepia color that will give your photos an old antique look.

Complete the look by placing an old trunk in your office. You can also keep office supplies in the trunk or you can use that trunk for other reasons. The trunk should give your home office a sense of style and design.

New Ideas for Decorating Your Home Office

Not only are more people working for themselves these days, many companies are discovering that having employees work from home is an efficient way to do business. To make sure you home office is conductive to work, there are a few simple touches you can do to liven up the environment while maintaining professionalism. Instead of a stagnant office, try to make your decor refreshing and in harmony with the rest of your home.

Try a monochrome color that you like. A monochrome theme provides a focused work style environment with a stylish appearance. Clean lines with bold injections of black or white is the new chic. It is important for your office to be integrated, but it should also feel like a place for work, not living. A alternate color style creates a separating mood between the office and home. Try some professional-looking wood blinds in the home office. No longer only for the film noir detective, modern wood blinds can come in any color or style to match your office. Wood blinds reek of success.

For a cheaper alternative, roller blinds can be used to regulate the optimum amount of light entering the workplace. Blinds especially reduce glare on sunny days. Venetian blinds can be tilted to according to the amount of light you want to enter the room. Venetian and roller blinds also come in colors, as well as black and white to match the monochrome effect. Inspirational artwork is also a good idea. Now, pictures can even be printed on roller or wood blinds. A picture of a serene outdoor setting can help alleviate claustrophobia, and allow for mini daydream breaks throughout the day.

A study, on the other hand, is less formal than the home office. It can be a place to entertain either guests or clients. The classic study look is leather chairs and wooden furniture, warm lighting and curtains to create an intimate location. Warm hardwood blinds, perhaps stained in cherry help complete the study. Wood flooring is another step that will make the room seem warm in winter. Wood is actually also a good insulator, so hardwood floors and blinds will also keep the study cool in summer. Study decoration is in marked contrast to the uniform office. A study is often a hectic collection of personally selected objects that are somehow unified by the force of the occupant. Don't feel strange about leaving a pile of books around. Distractions are good in a study. They give easy conversation points, or just something for your kids to mess with instead of you. Large bamboo blinds look fresh. The days of a fireplace are gone in most locations, but warm tones and conservative artwork replicate the ambiance of the traditional study.

Home offices often use a converted loft, garage or addition to the house. This offers the perfect chance to create your own world in the office or study. Surround yourself in the perfect environment and watch the work fly by.

Fitting a Home Office When You Have No Space

So you live in small house or apartment and now you need a home office either because you are studying, or starting your own business or even have a flexible working arrangement with your boss. The issue is, of course, where are you going to fit this new home office? Very few of us have entire empty rooms waiting for us to find a use for them as a home office.

The good news is that, if you are running the typical computer-based business you really don't need much that much room. In fact with a laptop - you don't even need a dedicated desk area - the kitchen table of the couch will do! For most people tough a dedicated work area is a must - so where to find this.

Re-purposing the spare bedroom is probably the most common solution to adding a home office. Either getting rid of the bed or replacing it with a folding sofa or even a bunk platform will probably give you enough space for ample work room. The addition of an Internet connection, possibly a phone line and good lighting and you are all set to work!

Another option is to take an under-utilized space and re-purpose it. The teenagers never use the basement games room anymore? Sell the pool table and reclaim the space. Eldest son moved out but retained their bedroom "just in case", and so they don't have to move all their clutter - provide free moving boxes.

Alternatively reuse a corner. An under stairs area can convert to a usable office cupboard - or even the corner of a landing or the garage. If you are setting up an office in an area used by others make sure you include some way to hide the space - and to avoid small items - like pens - disappearing. An office behind a cupboard door can be very practical - and when visitors come they won't even know that it’s there.

If space is at premium also look to your equipment: laptops take up far less space than a conventional computer - and these days cost very little more. Also a modern thin-screen monitor is much easier to fit in a corner than the now old-fashioned CRT monitors. If you need a fax, printer and scanner - buy a multifunction unit which will do all these functions in the same space as just one printer. Look for a wireless modem and wireless printer to keep cable clutter to the minimum.

Decorating Home Office to Increase Productivity

Research shows that a person's attire affects their work performance. Dressing professionally causes the mind to engage a serious business attitude, increasing productivity. Many managers in offices that have adopted a "Casual Fridays" dress code will confirm that the leisure attire induces a leisure attitude causing a decrease in production. If you have a home office, you more than likely have noticed the difference in how much you accomplish when you dress up in professional attire because of a client meeting compared to when you work in sweat pants and slippers because no one will see you.

Likewise is the affect of your surroundings in your office at home. How productive can you be when your computer sits on a wobbly press-board table and you keep moving piles of papers around because you don't have enough file cabinets to store them in? How easy is it to refer to a client's invoice if it is kept in a box that is better suited for storing Christmas ornaments in the garage?

Now picture yourself opening the door to your home office and seeing a custom built office designed to take full advantage of the space available. Does your perfect office have maple, cherry, or some other wood tone? Customized work surfaces in the perfect size and shape for optimal work performance? Storage and filing cabinets that are built to maximize limited space while permitting effortless locating of those client's invoices once relegated to storage boxes? Shelving or cubby holes that are within easy reach or hidden behind tidy cabinet doors? The possibilities of a personalized custom designed office are endless. The only limit is imagination.

Lucky for you, it is not limited to your imagination but that of the company you choose to install your new furniture. Select a licensed company that has many years of experience and offers free design consultation. Ideally they will have a design showroom for you to view examples of their previous design work. Once you have an idea of the style you like, the designer will work with you to prepare a 3-D design that meets your own personal needs.

Once your new home office furniture has been professionally installed, you will be amazed at how its functionality enables you to work more efficiently. The efficiency of being able to locate receipts, invoices, or other important papers on a moments notice will help you save time as well as reduce stress. In fact, your productivity may increase so much that you can wear your bunny slippers to work and still get maximum results.