5 Tips to Design the Perfect Home Office

Laptops and mobile devices may make the entire concept of a "home office" obsolete to some, but there are still plenty of homes today where a home office is an essential part of the interior design.  And depending on your own natural inclination toward tidiness, your office may quickly end up as a cesspool of clutter, rather than the neat organized space it started out as.

So how can you design the perfect home office and avoid the clutter?  Here are 5 tips to get you started:

1. Desk Space and Selection

When it comes to desk space, don't be afraid to spread out and "go big".  Corner units with an "L" shape are an ideal fit for the home office because you can utilize the office space and create plenty of area for organizational elements like your PC, printer, pads of paper, stationary compartments, "to-be-filed" bins and more.   

Looking for ideas, browse some desk designs at Pottery Barn and Haverty's or just do a simple web search for furniture makers and suppliers in your local area.  If you are working with a custom cabinetry shop for your kitchen or bathroom, keep in mind those companies can also supply furniture for your office too!

Be sure to incorporate plenty of outlets in your room, and position your desk next to these outlets to avoid extension cords and excessive power strips.  Like most people today the essential home office has many devices to plug in - telephone, headset, one, if not multiple PC's, laptop, iPad, iPhone, and printer - just to name a few.  If you are looking for more tips on designing the home office to organize all your gadgets, check out this book "How to Design the ULTIMATE Home office" by Hassan Osman, from thecouchmanager.com for more details.

2. Utilize Wall Space

Utilizing wall space is one of the key components to keeping your space neat and organized.  Hang shelves on the wall to hold books, compartments, and even your wireless printer, headset and other electronic gadgets.  

 

 

To utilize your wall space you can install devices to hang clip boards, shelves to store writing utensils, bookshelves to store your printer, books or other binders. You can install file cabinets and office essentials like a stapler, tape, paperclips to keep these items off the work area of your desk. 

3. Lighting

While a colorful desk lamp might seem nice when you are first setting up your office, it is quickly going to get in the way, once you start using your office.   But task lighting is important, so keep it small, and position it out of your way.

Tall, free standing floor lamps, or hanging lighting units from the ceiling, or inset track lighting are great alternatives!  

It will help minimize the clutter so you can better utilize your desk space.

4. Interior Decor

Your home office should be beautiful, as well as functional.  It should be an inviting space where you can retreat for whatever the task is at hand.  To create an inviting space keep the wall colors light, and incorporate natural light whenever possible.  If you prefer dark tones in your furniture and cabinetry, go with lighter tones on the floors.

Interior wood paneling is very popular in the home office.  Popular wood finishes for this application include Walnut dark wood flooring, and Cherry hardwood flooring.

Believe it or not, the flooring you select for your office can have a big impact how it looks and functions, as a workspace.  Carpet is probably not the best choice given that its hard to move around on it, tile can be cold and sterile.  Solid wood floors, like oak hardwood flooring, or heart pine flooring, is a great choice because it is easy to keep clean.  No need to worry about allergens, and you can keep the dirt and dust levels down!   If you use a wood floor be sure to complement you other interior decor appropriately.  Specifically, if you use dark wood wall paneling and cabinetry, use a lighter floor.  If you are using light furniture and walls you can go with a dark wood floor.

Lay down a floor mat under your chair and use felt pads on the bottom of your furniture, shelves and anything else that me resting on the floor, to minimize damage and scratches.

Save room for personal items that you want on display - family portraits, baby photos, and other artwork - these can add to the design and decor of your room and make it more personalized.  But don't clutter the space with this kind of decor. 

5. Construction and Architecture

Now that we have focused on all the "fun" stuff let's talk about the architecture and construction of your room.  The folks at Cipriani Remodeling in New Jersey  have two suggestions when it comes to this aspect of your home office. 

Include plenty of insulation and incorporate sound deadening to minimize noise and echoes in your office.  The pitter patter of little feet, playroom festivities, or teenage music is sure to interrupt your work.  Plan early on for the architectural and construction details you need to create a quiet space.    Sound Isolation Company has a variety of products to help you plan for sound-proofing your office.

They also recommend a private entryway for your office, which can be valuable if you entertain office visits on a regular basis.  If you don't need a private entryway from the outside of your home, make sure your office has a private entryway from the inside of your home.  Avoid open doorway designs and find a big, beautiful, heavy door that you can close when its time to be "in the office".

When thinking about these ideas, consider where your office will be located in your home.    Something on the lower level, in the quietest corner is probably ideal.

Have you designed an office for your home or for a client recently?  What were the most important elements to your design?  Do you have any favorite products that you use(d)?

5 Ways to Create Iconic Interiors and Avoid a Battle of the Sexes

Interior Design is an art.  One that is tailored to the individual wants, needs and desires of the client.   But oftentimes "clients" come in pairs - or rather couples - and each of them has their own viewpoint on what they want their interior design style to be.  

This is compounded by the fact that men are playing a more active role in interior design, according to Freshome Design & Architecture, it's one of the top 10 interior design trends for 2013!

As an Interior Design, it can sometimes feel like you are playing the role of "referee".  If you are the spouse or partner in question you may be wondering how to infuse your interior design vision into your home and please your partner. 

It may be easier than you think - so let's look at 5 ways to create an iconic interior that will please everyone!

1. Understand your Top 3-5 Priorities

According to Interior Designer Leslie Hassler, of Luxury Living for the Home Interior Design, in Dallas, Texas, the first goal is to understand what your individual priorities are when it comes to designing your interior.  She also recommends making these lists separately. 

Keep your list short, no more than 3-5.  When making these lists think about the rooms of your home, that are most important to you and the most important elements in those rooms, to you.  For example to have a particular cabinet style in mind for your gourmet kitchen?  Are you dreaming of wide plank oak hardwood flooring in your Great Room?  This can help you prioritize where each person's design ideas will apply.  Leslie points out that there is often "one rooms that has a shared priority and then there is the room that is just not as important to one person as it is to the other".

This creates an opportunity to prioritize the interior design schedule for each room, starting with the mutually important rooms, and designing the secondary rooms later in the schedule.

2. Focus on Quality, Durability, Comfort and Functionality

Women prefer light, and often brighter color schemes. They like carefully coordinated rooms with more artistic and design detail in the furniture, upholstery, and decor.  

Women appreciate comfort, but they also want to create a more luxurious decor.  Will they focus more on aesthetics than quality to create the right "look"?

On the flip side of this is men's preference toward clean, uncluttered and open spaces, with natural tones and less artistic detail. 

They want more comfort in the furnishings, fabrics, and accent pieces and more function in every room.   If that pillow or table doesn't serve a purpose it doesn't need to be there.   Will that table last 100 years?

When it comes to the big interior design items in the home, like the furniture, cabinetry, appliances, and wood floors you want to focus on quality, comfort, durability and functionality. 

• Will the product last and have a low ownership cost? 
• Will the product create a more comfortable space? 
• Will the product be durable for a new couple starting out, starting a family, introducing a pet and various social and family gatherings?

If you take into account these four attributes you can please the woman by creating stylish decors that still feature some of their favorite design elements.  You can please the man too, by making the spaces functional and adaptable to a changing lifestyle - while filling the home with timeless architectural elements that won't need replacement, or carry a high maintenance cost down the road.  And everyone loves that!

3. Blend Colors

As I mentioned earlier men and women can have very different opinions when it comes to color.  Men prefer muted natural, earth tones, and combinations of simple colors like white and black.  While Women also love these natural tones, they also want to infuse their spaces with colors.  To please everyone, you can start with a neutral pallet in a neutral tone like ivory, beige, and other earth tones, and blend in color in some of the smaller details:

Wood Floors

 

 

 

Accent Rugs

 

 

 

 

Walls Colors/Artwork and Decor

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lighting Fixtures

 

 

 

Upholstery/Curtains/Textiles

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cabinetry

 

 

 

 

 

4. Give Each Partner Their Own Space

The term "man-town" or "man-cave" inspires the imagination as you envision the hidden cave-like retreats of men everywhere, complete with pool table, flat screen TV, wet bar, and more.   This could also be a music room or trophy room for all the hunters out there.

The term "powder-room" may have very little meaning to men, it's just a "bathroom" to them, but for women this can be the small, private oasis that every guest gets to enjoy and where she can let a little bit of her creative juices flow.   This could also be an arts and crafts room, or a "princess" room where she gets ready every morning. 

Giving each partner a special room that they design to their own exact design and specifications, may help release stress or tension about not having all their needs met in the rest of the home.  If you just can't get your oversized leather sofa for the family room, it's would make a great fit for the billiard room!  If you agree on using a painted island in the kitchen, focus on what you can agree on and look for a space in another room to incorporate more color.

5. Communicate and Negotiate

As with all things related to marriage, communication is key.  As it learning the art of negotiation.   Understand that you "can't get everything you want" but you can look for compromises where each of you gets a little bit of what you were hoping for. 

Readers post your comments:

• Have you designed an interior recently?  What were some of the harder design decisions you had to make as a couple?  How did you make a final decision?

• Are you an interior designer?  Do you have any other advice to diffuse the "battle of the sexes" when it comes to interior design?

Family Friendly Flooring Options - 3 Things to Consider

If you are selecting a new floor for your home, there are three key considerations to determine if you are considering the right options:

• Durability & Longevity
• Ease of Cleaning and Maintenance
• Health, Safety & Comfort

Some of the most common floor covering options today are hardwood floors whether it is solid wood or engineered wood flooring, tile/stone and carpet.  Let's look at the three key considerations as they relate to these flooring options:

Hardwood Floors

•Durability & Longevity

High quality hardwood flooring can be a timeless addition to any home; after all wood flooring has been installed in homes, and survived, since the first homes were built in America.   Learn more about the Carlisle SlowCraftTM process to understand the steps that going into building the best quality wide plank hardwood floor. 

•Ease of Cleaning and Maintenance

The ease of cleaning and maintenance for your new hardwood flooring will depend on the finish being used.   We'll look at the three most common finishes:

• Aluminum Oxide Prefinished flooring is one of the worst finishes for a residential environment.  Despite the perceived "hardness" of this finish, floors finished with aluminum oxide will get scratches and they cannot be touched up so their beauty deteriorates rapidly! 
• Tung Oil is a "softer", penetrating finish that works great on pine floors and antique wood floors, as it has a very authentic hand-rubbed look, but it may require more regular maintenance, but is easy to touch up. It has a very strong odor as well.  If you are going to use Tung Oil see if you can order a prefinished wood floor to save time on site (and eliminate the odor) or allow ample time onsite for offgassing once the Tung Oil is applied.  A good tung oil product is available through Waterlox, or if you are a Carlisle customer we can ship it with your floor.
• Polyurethane is a hard flooring finish.  This is very appealing to customers.  Be sure to understand how easy or difficult it is to touch up (this will vary by manufacturer) and whether the polyurethane is oil based on water based.  Oil based polyurethane tends to yellow over time.  Waterbased polyerethane can sometime leave a thin white film on the floor (again depending on the manufacturer and quality of the finish).  One polyurethane that you may want to consider is available from Loba-Wakol.
• Prefinished Wood Flooring (non-Aluminum Oxide) are very common today, and naturally appealing, because they eliminate the need to finish the floors on site!  This saves time and can save money too!  But be sure to completely understand how the finish is applied to the floor, how much finish is applied and how you will need to clean the floor.  Also make sure you know IF your floor can be touched up.  Learn more about prefinished wood flooring.

•Health, Safety, and Comfort

Hardwood floors are one of the best choices if you want a healthy home.  It is easy to pick up dog hair, dirt and other allergens so they are easy to care for.  They are more comfortable under foot especially when compared to stone or tile in your kitchen and living areas. 

Tile/Stone

•Durability & Longevity

Tile/Stone flooring is a great option for exterior spaces, or interior spaces like a mudroom or entry way.  They are very durable and easy to care for especially when you have wet feet, sports equipment, back packs and other items scraped across it every day.   They may also be suitable for pool rooms, outside sauna's, and bathrooms, where the flooring may be exposed to a higher level of moisture.

•Ease of Cleaning and Maintenance

Tile is normally very easy to care for with a mop and a bucket.  Keep in mind overtime some tile, and the grout in between the tile, will discolor which could be annoying, and difficult to fix.

Stone flooring may require a little more special attention as the cleaning products you need may vary depending on the type of stone you use, so be sure to check with the retailer/manufacturer. 

•Health, Safety & Comfort

Stone and tile flooring is much harder underfoot than wood flooring and therefore has been known to be more uncomfortable especially in areas like a kitchen where you may be standing more frequently and for longer periods of time.  This type of flooring can also cause more damages during slips and falls.  From a health perspective tile and stone tend to be healthy options because they are a natural product.

Carpet

•Durability & Longevity

The durability and longevity of your carpet is going to depend on the quality and the manufacturer, so be sure to do your homework to understand this aspect of the options you are considering.  Carpet tends to wear much quicker than hardwood floors, and tile or stone.  It also stains easily (depending on the type of carpet).  But all carpet will need to be replaced at some point no matter how good the warranty sounds.  This will increase your overall cost of ownership when compared to hard surface flooring that will last longer and cost less over time.

•Ease of Cleaning and Maintenance

When compared to tile and hardwood floors, carpet is definately one of the least favorite floor coverings when it comes to clean - just image your dog walking across the carpet with wet paws, or your son spilling his juice cup.  If you are consdering carpet, it is best left in the secondary areas of the home where it is less exposed to those harmful elements.  Carpet does require more frequent cleaning, and a more labor intensive cleaning process - when compared to hardwood flooring or tile.

•Health, Safety & Comfort

Carpet can provide a very comfortable surface underfoot, but while its nice to walk on carpet on a cold day, how comfortable will it be on a hot day.  More importantly aside from the chemicals that go into the carpets for productions, carpets themslves can trap allergens, dust, debris, mold spores, dust mites...the list goes on.  This can cause allergies, expore your family to pollutants and chemicals. Hard surface flooring like tile or hardwood floors is recommended to elminate this concern and create a healthier living environment.

If you like the idea of carpet but don't want it to cover the entire flooring area area rugs are a great compromise and much easier to keep clean so you can support a healthy environment in your home.

What type of flooring do you prefer - hardwood, tile or stone, or carpet?  Is there one you would never use?

Looking for more ideas to create a family friendly home check out this great article from HGTV.

What to Expect with Interior Wood When Spring Humidty Rolls In

Spring has finally arrived and you are excited to open the windows, air out the house and allow that warm moist spring air to come inside.  It feels refreshing and energizing. 

All of a sudden you start to see changes in your home.  Your gaps in your wooden floors get smaller and your drawers and doors on wooden furniture are bit more snug.  During the cold dry winter months you noticed wider gaps in your wood floors and maybe panels on wooden doors appeared to shrink.  You could see some unfinished wood or finishing lines.  You are wondering - what happened?

In a nutshell, the wooden products in your home are adjusting to the humidity level in the atmosphere.  During the winter months the air is “dry” because cold air retains less moisture and when we heat the air the relative humidity becomes lower.  When you have “dry air” moisture is actually being drawn out of the wooden furniture in your home until an equilibrium state is reached.     That is why you will see gaps in your wood floors, doors, cabinets and why doors and drawers aren't quite as tight. 

The opposite affect happens when that moist spring and summer air rolls in.  Warmer air holds more moisture and the dry wood in your home will absorb that moisture until an equilibrium state is achieved.  This causes wood to swell, or become slightly larger. In technical wood geek terms, wood is hygroscopic, which refers to its property of changing to atmospheric humidity.

To control the expansion and contraction of wood, you want to establish moisture/humidity control in your home.  Moisture is controlled in homes with proper ventilation, control of air infiltration, heating, cooling and controlling humidity with either a dehumidifier or a humidifier, which adds moisture to a home.  With an inexpensive thermometer and hygrometer you can measure the temperature and humidity level in your home.  You can consult a qualified specialists to help you design an indoor environmental control system that is appropriate for your home.

The environmental protection agency recommends that homes maintain a relative humidity level between 30% and 50%.  The EPA recommends normal indoor temperatures for winter to range between 67.5 F and 75.5 F and summer indoor temperatures range between 73 F and 80 F.  If you really wanto to maintain pristine environmental climate control you can look at museum quality standards.  Generally you can think of museum quality climate control as keeping  the temperature at 70 degrees Fahrenheit and the relative humidity at 50% (Rh%).  Ideally, these two conditions do not change or change more than 10 degrees Fahrenheit and 10%Rh within 24 hours.  Whether you target EPA guidelines or museum quality standards one of the important points here is to try to maintain the stability of the temperature and relative humidity in your home.  Remember that the moisture content in your wood is trying to reach equilibrium.  Keeping a consistent temperature and relative humidity level will allow the wood’s moisture content to be stable and therefore your wood will be stable – no more (or a lot less) expansion and contraction. 

If you prefer interior wood details that remain constant between seasons, then keeping a stable indoor climate will increase your enjoyment of your wooden home furnishings and interior wood elements.  But, keep in mind, you don't need a sophisticated moisture control system in your home to enjoy beautiful floors, cabinets and other interior wood elements, as long you understand that wood is a natural product and will respond to the loss of or introduction of moisture from season to season.

This article was contributed by Patrick Kennedy of Superior Woodcraft.

Superior Woodcraft is a local custom cabinet maker from Doylestown, Pa - the heart of Bucks County.

Superior Woodcraft, Inc.
160 N Hamilton Street
Doylestown, Pa 18901
215-348-9942
www.superiorwoodcraft.com