2026, Computers, Fantasy, home, Kids, work

The New Office

13 Comments

During Covid, once I got un-furloughed, YA and I were both working from home – she was fulltime and I was half-time.  She had a desk in her room with the big monitor and I had my big monitor in my studio.  Most days I moved the big monitor onto the floor in the corner so I could use my desk for crafts.  YA left her big monitor up on her desk all the time.

When I retired (and permanently excised the big monitor from my studio), YA began to do her work-from-home Mondays and Fridays from the dining room.  The big monitor in her room didn’t get turned on for MONTHS.  It was occasionally problematic with her in the dining room.  She is very sensitive to background noise when she is on calls so if I doing anything downstairs (like cooking), it bugged her.  And me. 

About two months ago she casually mentioned that we should probably get rid of the old day bed in what we call the sunroom.  It’s a small room, windows on three sides – no closet.  Since I’ve been slowly but steadily de-cluttering the house, I probably said “uh huh” and nodded my head.  Then about a week later, she said that she’d like to make the sunroom into a home office.  The light bulb about the day bed flashed on at that point. 

We had to take the day bed apart to get it to the boulevard.  The city took it off our hands in three different trucks over three different days and then YA went to work.  Cleaned, vacuumed, moved her desk into the new office and positioned the big monitor front and center.  Then of course, she had to fill the empty space in her room – more cleaning and vacuuming.  The little vanity that she moved looked swamped so off she went to IKEA and came home with a new vanity.  It looks good. 

The little old vanity sat on the boulevard for about 45 minutes before somebody stopped and scooped it up.

The curtain fiasco took about a week since first the curtain rods she ordered didn’t work and then the first set of curtains was too short.  I think, as of this writing, she’s all set.  Friday will be the inauguration of the office so we’ll see how it goes.  Hopefully I won’t make too much noise in the bathroom if I keep the bathroom door shut!!

Have you ever worked from home?  What would be a necessity for you in a home office?

13 thoughts on “The New Office”

  1. I worked from home for a two-week period in 2010 when I was still in Waterville. The hatchery office space was being remodeled after our supervisor was fired. It was like they felt sorry for me after years of being truly offensive. They set me up in the room I already used as a study. It was nice, but it wasn’t easy to do my job since so much of my job was public information. I didn’t get used to it, which was good.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  2. im a home office guy. i had real offices for years and then when i went through divorce i took that money and got an apartment and the dining room table became my office.
    i have had workers come to my house/warehouse to do what needs doing then my right hand man said he wanted to work from home. this was after we located the office warehouse near his house to make it convienientvfor him. 40 minutes from me but i was going to 3 or 4 meetings a day and id stop in to see if everything was ok and i found stuff to do and keep the game plan on track.
    he started working from home and i told him after a couple weeks that he wasnt very good at it. he didnt get much done. he said he was having a mental breakdown and wanted to take a leave. i called after a month or two then six months. then another year and yes he asked me to hold the job. then i got a call from some guy asking me about my worker and if i could be a reference for his job application. i was floored. after almost 2 years of checking in with him he bailed but in reality, i just kept doing what i was doing. it was a little inconvienient but i figured it out. i still do my work from home and may hire folks to help out but my office is in my lap

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  3. I began working as a freelance marketing and advertising creative in 1996. Though I sometimes worked on site with a client, much of my work required a home office. Because my services entailed both electronic and more traditional work, I needed space and an array of sturdy tables for computers (usually two— my current one and a previous one as backup), monitors, printers, a scanner, various storage devices and, originally, a fax machine. I also required a drawing table and storage cabinets for art supplies.

    We have lived in three different houses since the late ‘90s and so I have set up three different office/studios. The present one is in a basement room that was semi-finished when we moved in, with drywall on the walls and a door. I painted it and had some sturdy carpeting put in. It contains my two computer setups, printers, and a scanner. I also have my drawing table and a stack of flat files for paper supplies topped with a cutting mat. I use that for most of my bookbinding activities. Five bookcases worth of books have also migrated into the space.

    When we first moved into our present house, the second floor attic space had been minimally finished as a usable room. I stripped it down to the studs and added proper insulation and updated wiring plus a second bathroom, then had it drywalled. I added wainscoting and we painted it all and I put in a floating cork floor over all. There are two alcoves in the space. One of them holds Robin’s sewing machine and storage sewing notions plus a small desk and chair. The other alcove originally held my drawing table but when it became evident that Robin needed some office space, both for domestic purposes and also for some of her at-home work as an administrative assistant for a realty I relinquished the space and brought in a small desk and a second printer, plus storage and shelving. The entire upstairs has become Robin’s studio space and she has filled it to the brim with mostly fiber art supplies and projects and pertinent books . It’s an inspiring refuge and also, given our natures, a necessity.

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

      1. It is. I have a six-foot folding table I set up to lay out the pattern and cut the pieces with an ironing board set up on one end. It gets a little crowded but I take it all down between projects. I have my own sewing machine (two, actually, both vintage and somewhat reconditioned) and behind folding doors at one end of the room are art supplies, sewing accessories, my fabric stash and bookbinding equipment.

        Liked by 4 people

        Reply

  4. I work from home now on all the UU stuff, etc. at the computer in our “solarium” – a former front porch of this 1930 house, we believe. Behind me is our jigsaw puzzle “station” (standing buffet with an extra board on top to enlarge, just the right height) and my “library” on one end…

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  5. I worked from home for many many years. The barn, the shed, the fields…
    Then got other jobs that sometimes had me working other places, but I still had a home office.
    We started out downstairs in a room, but it was so far away from everyone and I was just doing bookwork down there. Friends lugged a giant office table down there; it has to be 42″ deep and 8′ long. It’s a great table and you can get a LOT of stuff piled on there.
    Then we got a fireproof filing cabinet for free, from somewhere. A tall, 4 drawer, deep cabinet. I don’t remember even how that came about. But those same several friends dragged that down there. Good thing it was going DOWN the stairs. So that’s a permanent fixture in the basement office, still. We keep important stuff in there.
    Then the office moved upstairs into sons old bedroom. I bought a nice desk and filing cabinet. Then we got a free loveseat from someone so that went in there. Then Kelly started working from home and now we share the office. The couch is where Luna sleeps. And the other half, I’m sorry to say, is piled with crap. Add in Humphreys bed/pillow, the printer cart, and Kelly’s storage cabinet and there’s not much room in there anymore.
    We enjoy working in the office together. And her work people love hearing the chickens and roosters outside the windows on calls.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  7. In the 90’s I worked from home a little from time to time. I had a three-day-a-week schedule in the office, and was mostly off the other two days, but sort of on call. At that time, all I needed was a laptop.

    During the pandemic I started working for Intuit and acquired a workstation outfitted with the Intuit-owned laptop and two monitors, one company-supplied, and one that I got for five bucks at a garage sale. My workstation was the kind that you could adjust from a seated to standing position. I found it most convenient to just keep it at the standing height all the time.

    I set it up in the dining room, and it was never very convenient. I had to run power cords to power strips to wall outlets, in a house that never really had outlets designed for 20th century life, much less 21st. Having a camera was a requirement.

    The first year I worked for Intuit, they sent me something to serve as a Zoom background, which was referred to as a peacock tail. It was designed to attach to an office chair and fanned out to display an Intuit logo. I wasn’t using an office chair, so I hung it from a folding screen instead.

    A few years ago I rented an office. It’s a small windowless space, but it serves the purpose very well. I now have a motorized worksurface with the two monitors and a keyboard, which I can connect to the Intuit laptop or my own business laptop with a potpourri of UBS and HDMI connections. The peacock tail is not used anymore, so on Zoom meetings the bookshelf behind me shows an eclectic collection of artifacts. No one looks very closely at the background.

    I don’t miss the peacock tail at all.

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

    1. I never used a background screen/cover… whatever they are called. We all knew we were working from home… why pretend? And it was always distracting to me when some using a background would move and their otuline would go fuzzy for a bit. I swear, every day being retired is a gift!

      Liked by 3 people

      Reply

Leave a comment