The overall look and feel of your home office can greatly affect how productive you are while working from home. And while designing for productivity can seem like a difficult task, there are ways to do it easily, even for those who don’t hail from creative backgrounds. As designer Maxwell Alexander explains, “Turning your bare walls into a stunning art gallery is not as daunting a process as you think, and you do not need a ton of money to make it happen.” With that in mind, here are some ideas that can help you turn your residential office into a home for both productive work and inspiring art.
Interior Decorating Ideas to Help Boost Productivity in Your Home Office
by Maggie Ford
Wall Decor and Other Design Accents
Experimenting with wall decor can be a great, affordable, and easy way of lending an artistic atmosphere to your home office’s bare walls. Fine art pieces are becoming more affordable today through websites like Simplida which offer canvas prints of fine art photography. Whether you’re more interested in inspiring thought pieces like The Knot, or more straightforward flashes of color like the Sparkling Rose, these canvas-printed photographs can introduce touches of sophisticated art to your home office. And they’re cheaper than paintings from traditional galleries.
Furthermore, their wide selection of fine art canvas prints can also allow you to choose art based on certain color palettes, or take advantage of the contemporary frameless look that works in both living rooms and dedicated home offices. Similarly, visiting thrift stores is also a good way to spot paintings and other decor that will help make your office more conducive for productivity. The key is to find pieces that not only complements your existing color palette, but also inspires you in some way. Apart from paintings, you should also consider sculptures, artistic furnishings, vintage signs, indoor plants, or even relief sculptures if your walls can support the weight. If you find it to be inspiring, then it belongs in your home office – as long as it’s not visually distracting and doesn’t get in your way. This brings us to our next point.
Home Office Layout
When choosing any artwork for your home office, consider how it will work with both the physical and visual layout. Physically, any two or three-dimensional decorative piece shouldn’t get in the way of you actually doing your work. Visually, it should be able to work with the existing visual elements in your existing office. You should also consider how you can physically arrange the furniture and essential items in your office in a way that meets both criteria.
Designing your layout like this will allow you to avoid a cluttered look, even if you have plenty of practical and decorative objects at play. Country Living in a gallery of home office ideas illustrates how practically any design template or palette can be arranged in ways that work both visually and physically. Whether you want a minimalist and modern look or a vintage atmosphere which includes several antique pieces, remember to design everything with this in mind. All essential items should be within reach. All visual elements should not only be inspiring, but should also complement the visual and physical layout of your dedicated working space.
Hiring Professional Help
Not all of us are designers by heart. And if you can’t wrap your head around the aforementioned tips, you might be better off letting the pros take over the interior design for your home office. The principal caveat to this is of course the considerable cost. A guide to starting an interior decorating business by ZenBusiness, discusses the industry as a whole, and pegs the average annual salary for designers at $69,990. This means that interior designers are looking to earn around $6,000 per month from different clients. Although this average differs in terms of location as well as the nature and extent of the desired output, it provides a general idea of what you might have to pay to get the services of a professional decorator.
At the same time, given the current circumstances related to the global health crisis, some interior designers may be amiable to providing discounted rates. Either way, if you have the budget for it, hiring professional help can be a great way of achieving the home office that you want – in exactly the way you want it. If you pick the right designer to hire, they should be able to translate your vision into reality. Furthermore, with all of the creative heavy-lifting outsourced to a pro, you can better focus on your own specialization and utilize your home office to its fullest potential.
About Maggie Ford: Maggie Ford is a freelance lifestyle blogger with a passion for interior and exterior design. Through her articles she hopes to inspire her readers with new ideas on how they can improve their homes. Her passions outside of decorating and design are hiking, climbing, and reading.