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via EmailOne of the more important decisions related to working-at-home is deciding where to set-up your office. Beyond the obvious issues of avoiding interruption and distraction, where you set-up shop can have a big impact on your work-life balance as well.
When I first started working at home in 2002 I used one of our spare bedrooms as my office. At that point, my wife worked full-time and we had no kids so I really had the house to myself during the day. In that empty-house environment, there really wasn’t much to distract me from my work during the day so the issue of location didn’t seem all that important. However, after some time it became apparent that having such easy access to my office made it a little too easy to work.
Beyond my normal work day, I’d often find myself responding to an instant message, doing a “quick” email check or writing “just a few more” lines of code. When you added-up all of my brief office visits, my 8 hour work day would often become a 10+ hour work day. While this may be great for HP, it’s probably not so great for me.
Work-at-Home Tip: Those BEEPs and DINGs that Outlook and your IM client make to notify you of a new message are fine during the work day, but shut them off when you’re done for the day. There’s nothing worse than hearing the DING of Outlook during dinner and knowing that there’s something in your inbox that requires attention. Maybe it’s just me, but there’s something about the “psychic weight” of unfinished tasks that drives me crazy. Ignorance is bliss in this case.
Being so close to the office for much of the day definitely made it harder to stop working, but I suspect that most people would be able to overcome that with a little bit of discipline. For me, the issue that really got me thinking about my home office location was the birth of our son in 2004. I didn’t have the house to myself anymore — my wife and son were now home most of the day and things were suddenly a lot more distracting. It wasn’t too bad at first (those newborns tend to sleep a lot and don’t make too much noise), however, once Oscar started walking it became apparent that I was going to have to find a new place to work.
I certainly feel lucky that I was present for the first roll/word/crawl/step, but once the little guys are walking, talking and opening doors it can be a bit challenging to talk on the phone or just put your head down and get some work done. I definitely understand that working at home is a privilege and is something that I take pretty seriously. I didn’t want to be that guy whose kids you can always hear in the background during the teleconference — I always felt like that was a little disrespectful to one’s co-workers so I started looking at my options.
I should point out that we live in San Diego in a house that was built in the 1930’s so it’s a little on the ‘cozy’ side. Relocating my office to the back of the house wasn’t really gonna make any difference in a house that was only 1800 square feet to begin with. If I was going to continue working from home, it was looking like I was either going to need to add on to the house or move to the garage (neither of which were particularly attractive).
As it turns out there was another option that was immediately obvious: build a stand-alone office. Our house isn’t particularly big, but we do have a pretty good sized lot and it just so happens that there was a big chunk of it that we weren’t doing anything with. Behind our garage was a 10′ x 17′ area that one of the previous owners had gated-off and finished with a nice slab of concrete. We were using it to store junk, but it turned out to be the perfect place to put an office!
I toyed around with the idea of extending the garage or having something custom built, but after doing some research I discovered that the most cost effective way to get what I wanted was to purchase a pre-fab building. There are lots of companies that offer these sorts of things but I ended-up buying from a company called Tuff Shed that specializes in installing sheds and garages. A Tuff Shed rep came out to look at my space and give me an overview of their products. One of their most popular products apparently is the 8″ x 15″ Standard Ranch Storage Building (I’m sure it’s no coincidence that the largest structure you can put on your property in San Diego without requiring permits is 8″ by 15″). Luckily, this was the perfect size building for the space I had behind my garage.
Once I selected the basic building size and style, I was given the opportunity to select the size, style and placement of the door as well as the number, size, shape, and placement of any windows. I also got to pick the color for the building, trim and shingles. Four weeks after I placed my order, two guys showed-up with a big truck full of materials and they had my new office “installed” about 6 hours later. The four walls came pre-assembled but everything else was put together on site.
So, now I had a place to work but it wasn’t quite ready for me to move in. Since Tuff Sheds are typically used as sheds they aren’t really suitable for occupation (it would probably serve as a fine place to park your lawn mower, but isn’t someplace that I’d want to spend my days). However, after finishing the interior with insulation, drywall, carpet and paint things were starting to look downright homey.
I’ve been in my shed for over a year now and I absolutely love it. I’m just far enough away that I don’t get distracted by the daily adventures of the kids (we’ve got two now) but close enough that I don’t miss anything important. The other nice thing is that it has significantly reduced my temptation to engage in those evening/weekend work sessions. The “commute” through the back yard to the office is just enough of a barrier to keep a nice separation between work and life. If Outlook beeps and no one is around to hear it, did you really get an email? Guess I won’t know till tomorrow.
(You can see more pics of my office here)
Ahh, the honor of the first comment!
Having seen these photos when this endeavor was under way, it was nice to see them again and be reminded of how jealous I am that you have this. As you know, throughout my various telework travels I have been asked to leave a sales office in Texas (I had the gall to wear shorts in 100+ degree weather) and set up shop in basement laundry rooms. None have been as nice and isolated as this.
I’m with you on the *DING*. I’m as bad as when I see that little envelope show up in my lower right tool bar I can’t stand it unless I see what the messages are. Simply walking away is very, very difficult for me.
Pete Johnson
HP.com Chief Architect
Personal blog: http://nerdguru.net
Oh wow. This is fantastic! I figured it could be done through places like TuffShed, but I hadn’t really seen any examples until now. This looks pretty sweet. I like the pitch of the ceiling - nice open space.
I do agree in physically separating work and home when one works from home, but I don’t have room for something so grand. I need to work out of the “office” bedroom for now, where it’s all still a bit of a mish-mash of many things. This is a nice inspiration for days to come. I had a good chuckle when I saw the photos of all the wiring details (”Ooo, cool!”) at the Flickr set. Thanks for sharing.
- Wendee
No matter how articulate you may be in doing so, saying “FIRST!” on the Internet is a big no-no, especially for a grown man.
Anyway, Brian, in the future, I will steal your idea and put it to good use. A home office that isn’t inside the home? That’s great.
very cool idea!
Looks fantastic - great work! Just hope no-one breaks in and steals all your monitors!
I think this is a great solution. I wonder if the ceiling height makes you feel claustrophobic? Although that’s probably not an issue since you’re sitting most of the time. Nicely done!
Would you be adverse to giving a ballpark as to how much this cost to build to where it was usable as an office?
@neail: The shed itself cost about $4000 (including delivery and installation). I spent another $2000 to have it insulated, dry-walled, painted and carpeted. I did all the wiring myself so I saved a lot of money there.
I noticed in your pictures that you installed an in wall A/C unit beside the door.
Did you install that unit yourself (i.e. cut the hole for the unit) or was that taken care of by the guys who did all the finish work for you?
[...] DeHamerspace » Working At Home - The Office he describes how he set up a shed to serve as his office. I’m not sure how practical this [...]
@Sean: The A/C was sort of an after-thought. So I cut that hole in myself after the shed had already been assembled (but before the dry-wall work). If I’d planned appropriately, I could have specified that the shed be built with a cut-out for the A/C.
Thanks Brian for showing us this great idea. But could you tell us how much this cost?! And could you give us a basic breakdown of the following?
-Shed Alone
-Wiring for Power and Ethernet
-Sheetrocking
-Did the shed come with windows?
Thanks,
Doublejnyc
Ok, I’m an idiot. I just saw the above post. So sorry.
Nice job, and a decent solution to a cramped house, but…
Note that once you run electrical to an outside building the “no permits required” bit goes out the window. You most certainly did need permits and inspections for all of that, particularly since the run to the exterior building would require its own subpanel and separate emergency cutoff.
And you did bury the lines in a proper conduit, at least 18″ deep, right? (that’s NEC 2005; your area may conform to an older standard that is more lenient)
I’m a DIY electrician as well, but wiring to an exterior building is a completely different kettle of fish from rewiring stuff inside the house.
@Zathrus: You’re absolutely right — I should have been more specific. The structure didn’t require any building permits, but we still needed to get the electrical inspected. We were doing a larger remodel project on the house at the time and the shed work was all permitted/inspected as part of that. My father is an electrical contractor so everything was done by the book.
Very nicely done… I too live here in San Diego with one new baby (perhaps going for a second) and contemplating the home office space. My wife joking said, “Maybe we’ll move all of your stuff out in a shed.” I might just consider it, since I see how it could turn out I’ll have to spec out building it completely myself or going with something like Tuff Shed as the foundation so to speak.
@Brian: Good to hear! I just worried that people with less know how would read “no permits” and not realize that issue! Excellent job btw!
[...] DeHamerspace » Blog Archive » Working At Home - The Office [...]
[...] just put up chipboard to cover the wiring. Having read the Lifehacker article and the associating DeHamerspace website, it appears that there might be benefit in installing some sort of air conditioning / heating unit [...]
Hi Brian, great article - saw your link on Lifehacker. Interestingly I’ve been looking at doing something similar here in the UK although already have the structure (see http://www.markgolledge.com - I’ve linked to this site if that’s ok). However, can you let me know whether the insulation and dry walling was relatively straightforward to do (did you do it yourself or get someone to do it?). I have neither in my shed and I expect this might make a difference.
I’m also interested in the heat in your space. Does it get too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter and if not, what did you do to get around this? My shed currently has no ventilation (i.e. windows) so I expect this might make a difference.
Great article and look forward to hearing your response!
@Mark: I did not do the insulation and dry walling myself — however it looked to be a pretty easy job for someone that knows what they’re doing. The insulation guys took less than 30 minutes to unroll insulation into the walls and ceiling. The drywallers had the sheetrock up in a few hours. I think the complicated part of the sheetrock work was probably dealing with all the various boxes I’d installed in the wall for electricity, networking, etc. Obviously, they had to go through and make a little cut-out in the sheetrock for every outlet.
Beyond that, it was probably another couple hours of work for someone to come through and do the texturing on top of the sheetrock. All of this probably would have taken me forever, but it was a pretty small job for a professional.
As for the heating/cooling issues, take a look at the follow-up post I made where I touch on that and some other common questions that I’ve received: Home Office - Revisited
Thanks for your questions.
[...] DeHamerspace presents a crafty solution to adding a home-office to your hacienda. [read DeHamerspace article here] [...]
Thanks for detailing this and sharing the cost and issues you addressed… I see the plywood floor in the picture but didn’t see any note about a foundation, was that something you provided, or, was your concrete patio considered ‘enough’, or, did Tuff Shed provide some type of foundation?
I’m looking to replace an old aluminum shed on the property, it’s about double the size of yours, and I was considering making it an art studio and sometime guesthouse w/Murphy-style bed. I have MUCH more confidence about pursuing the project now given the obvious success of yours. Thanks!
@rucy: I just used the concrete patio that was already in place — it was stable and level which was all that the Tuff Shed guys required. Best of luck with your project!
What an awesome idea. I was looking at a Tuff Shed to empty our garage, but now I’m thinking of getting another one for my wife’s home office! How do you think this is going to work with taxes/2008 economic stimulus plan? 2008 capital expenses can be depreciated 50%.
[...] DeHamerspace » Blog Archive » Working At Home - The Office [...]
[...] at LifeHacker I’ve got some real plans! Although I have an office in the house these days, Brian DeHamer’s home/shed office is fantastic! Particularly with his [...]