5 Home Office Upgrades on my Wish List

Four years ago I went from working in London, commuting for three hours a day and generally being miserable and exhausted all day to a freelance role which allows me to work from home and avoid the stresses of the big city.

My husband and I are lucky that we live in a house with a couple of spare rooms which we currently use as our individual home offices; I have a single bedroom and my husband lucked out with a double.

However, we’ve taken on a big Spring clean projected which involves decluttering and reorganising our house for a more functional, tidier place and we will be merging our offices into the bigger, double room and having the smaller room as a guest room for visiting family and friends.

I am pretty smug about this (as you can probably imagine) as it means I get the chance to redesign and upgrade my working space (and I get more room yippee!)

I have had a little while to think about how I want to upgrade my new work space and have come up with the following changes I am hoping to make in order to make my home office more functional and to promote productivity.

L shaped Desk

I spend a lot of my day sitting at my computer as I work in digital marketing and of course, am a blogger so along with a comfortable ergonomic chair (office chairs work best) my desk is one of my biggest priorities.

The desk I currently have is a basic one and I find I hardly have any spare space what with my CPU, computer screen, scanner and printer all on the surface.

Not only do I want a desk that will house my computer, scanner, printer etc but I also want space where I can store and work on my crafty hobbies so I have been looking at getting a spacious L-shaped desk where one side can be for my work equipment and the other for my hobbies.

I have my eye on this large Corner Computer and Gaming Desk Table with Keyboard Shelf and CPU Trolley from Amazon which I am hoping will be perfect for my new space.

Better Storage

In my current desk I have a set of drawers which are filled to the brim with various bits of stationery – notebooks, pens and the such like which I will need to find a new home for in my new office.

I also have a lot of craft supplies that I want to re-home from my living room where it is very untidy to my new office to keep it out of the way and neatly organised.

There’s lots of inspiration for storage ideas to be found on Pinterest and although I would love to get my hands on a Scrapbox I will probably end up picking up some classic minimal Ikea shelving which appears to my Scandinavian style sensibilities.

Joyful Decor

Right now my little office room is a bit dreary – there’s only one small window which doesn’t let in much light and I haven’t really taken the opportunity to make it a very inviting space.

My new work area will be in a bigger room with bigger windows which will let in more natural light which is a huge plus both for me and for my blog photography!

I also have a collection of orchids which have been suffering with me in my small room, so I am looking forward to brightening up my desk with some plants and perhaps get some nice artwork on the walls like the photo canvas of my trip to Morocco last year to make my office space a happier place to be.

Fibre Broadband

I have been considering switching up our internet service to fibre for some time. Having a fast, reliable connection is really important to me for my job in digital marketing and, of course, as a blogger but I just haven’t gotten around to sorting it out yet.

Moving into my new office space seems like a good opportunity to get this done but I do have concerns regarding the potential cost of set up and monthly fees so I been researching into fibre broadband deals to try and get the best value.

In my area I could get up to 362Mbps superfast average download speeds with companies such as Virgin Media, Sky, BT and TalkTalk all covering the road where I live starting at £25 per month and going up to around £28. So now I just need to review the options and make a choice!

Stretching Space

As I mentioned before I will be sharing my new office space with my husband who currently is set up in our spare double bedroom. Vlad, my husband, is an Osteopath and although he works out at various clinics he also needs to write up notes and generally work on his business which is why he has an office at home.

Of course, as an Osteopath he is always giving me advice on how to avoid a bad back or how to avoid a flare up of RSI which I have in my right wrist. He also is a big advocate of taking time away from desks in order to stretch and get some exercise.

In my new office space, I would really love to have my yoga mat and maybe some basic free weights set up so that I have no excuse to get up and do some stretches or a mini workout during my workday to ensure I stay fit for purpose!

What changes would you like to make to your home office?