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The Home Office
January 7, 2008

If it hadn't been for Woodland Shoppers Paradise, I would have missed the article in the New York Times entitled The Office Housebroken by Julie Scelfo.  Remember when “home office” meant the company headquarters?  Now “home office” means literally an office in the home and more and more Americans have one.  In fact, Scelfo quotes The American Home Furnishings Alliance, “that 7 in 10 Americans now have offices or designated workstations in their homes, a 112 percent increase since 2000.”  In addition, 28 million people work from home or part time from home.

I have an office in my home.  It is where I write this column.  My office is on the second floor of our home and occupies the whole floor.  I sit facing the wall in a corner with only a skylight that is open in the spring and summer.  I have four filled bookcases and more books are everywhere in piles.  I have a table with filled with poetry books and copies of poems a foot tall.  There is art on the walls, but it’s the picture of the Marriott Hotel on Kauai and those picturesque rocks at Cabo San Lucas on my bulletin board that catch my gaze.  Beverly does not have an office.  Like a lot of women she uses the dining room table or the little cupboard in the den for budget items.

According to Scelfo, our family is typical, but that is changing.  She quotes “a recent survey by the National Association of Home Builders who found that home offices ranked as the fourth most important feature in a new upscale home, just ahead of security.  While adding an office to an existing home in the past was limited to the office supply store or the high end furniture store, now there are many options, including carpenters and interior designers willing to work on just one room.

Scelfo, sees several different needs:

A Room of His Very, Very Own - The luxury market for the man who wants and can afford a room of his own, the testosterone room.

Women Have Stuff, Too  - “Only recently have designers begun recognizing that women need work spaces on a par with their husbands’ and taken steps to create them.

High-Tech, and Hidden – the user wants all the high tech gadgets, but wants the office clean and uncluttered.

Small Spaces, Big Dreams – our homes may be smaller, so the way to get an office means using space creatively.

If Scelfo is right, Beverly will be demanding an office of her own.  I hope she doesn’t want to share my room.



Thoughts?  You can comment directly or email me at landfair3554@comcast.net

Posted by Mike Landfair on January 7, 2008 | Comments (0)