Tag Archives: home office

Creating a Stylish Desk

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Posters on grey wall above wooden desk in natural home office interior with plants and lamp

A place to pay bills, check your email or work from home is a must for any home, especially these days. Ideally, you have an entire room dedicated to your home office. For some even if they have a spare room, they would rather just have a desk in the master bedroom or tucked into the corner of the kitchen or even living room.  If your home office is a desk in another room, it should be a stylish addition to the room that works with the room’s existing décor.

A workspace can be a designated desk with drawers and file space or it can be a beautiful table.  Traditional writing desks have a few small drawers under the top but open legs. Your furniture choices don’t have to feel like a traditional office outside the home. Choose what works best for your needs!

Reminder: For chairs with casters, a hardwood floor or a mat over the carpet makes movement easier and protects your floors. For chairs without casters, be sure to put felt protectors on the bottom of the chair legs or feet.

When decorating your stylish desk, consider a pair of lamps that make it feel like a console table. A mirror would be a nice addition above the desk to reflect light and break up the cream expanse of the wall. Or you could hang a framed artwork above the table to add color and pattern to the wall. The possibilities are endless!.

Home Office with Style

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Corsica Model at Ironwood Crossing 001With a home office, style can be just as important or even more important than function. As an integral part of your home, office space should appeal to the same aesthetic that you use in the rest of your home. Colors, furniture, accessories and lighting need to work for your projects while still presenting the feeling you want your home to convey.

This home office, from the Fulton Homes Corsica model at Ironwood Crossing, comes into view the minute you walk into the home. If your home’s first impression occurs with your home office, more than ever you want it to represent your style.

Take a look at the different ways this home office sends a message about the homeowner. The desk has strong modern lines, and positioning it facing front makes it even more powerful. The cabinet set behind the desk allows files, papers and office supplies to stay hidden, maintaining a home-like feel even if it is a fully-functional office.

The old-fashioned leather wing chair on the left provides a touchstone of tradition, as well as providing a comfortable seat for a guest. By having this chair behind the desk rather than in the front, the homeowner can chat with a visitor and the desk is off to the side rather than serving as a barrier.

Accessories and art demonstrate a contemporary flair, and colors stay neutral with the exception of the two glass vases on the window between the home office and the living room. Low maintenance plants add a note of warmth.

Functional and livable, this home office can serve multiple purposes while helping to contribute to the comfort and style of this Fulton Home.

A Space all your Own

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Kitchen DSC_0292Yes, this is a lovely kitchen. Pendant lights hang down on an oversized island. You have plenty of room to fix even the most complex of meals. But we’re not talking about the kitchen today. Instead, take a look to the left in this photo – to a small room off the kitchen with a built-in desk and cabinets. That space belongs to you.

What would you do with this piece of real estate all your own with no structured purpose? It could be a spot for organizing the household – keeping the family calendar updated along with lists of responsibilities and plans for upcoming weekends.

It could be used to track and pay bills, check email and visit Facebook or Pinterest. Or how about using the space for scrapbooking or writing holiday cards or thank-you notes? The cabinets above the desk could hold extra notepaper or those holiday cards you bought on sale last January – easy to find when November rolls around again.

What about gift wrapping? It might be the place where you keep extra office and school supplies or even some art supplies for emergency homework projects. You could tuck yourself in here every evening with a nice cup of tea and write up your to-do list for tomorrow – or just read a magazine.

Finally, this space could fuel your dreams. Always wanted to start your own business? You could start it here. It’s your space to do with what you want. Fulton Homes wants to help you make all of your dreams come true, and give you the space for it.

Coordinating an Open Floor Plan – Family Room and Office

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Fulton Homes Starlight Model

An open floor plan makes any home feel more spacious and interesting. Every step opens up a new view of living areas – kitchen, dining, family room and even office.

The office space in this home – the Fulton Homes Starlight model – demonstrates the appeal of an office or den that is open to the family room. the wall openings support a separate living area while still making the office feel part of the greater whole.

Decorating the office and family room to ensure that the spaces are seen as separate but still coordinated requires some planning. Here are some décor choices that make these spaces work well together.

Coordinating color-schemes: Neutrals pair well with black, red and a soft green to build a common theme of colors without too much repetition. The green chair in the office picks up the color of the family room throw pillows while the patterned fabric appears on the office valance and the other sofa throw pillows. Notice that the rug also carries those colors through to the family room.

Lighting: Both rooms have matching ceiling fans, but the real connection comes from the table and floor lamps. The unusual sloping square lampshades in a natural cream tone carry from one room to the next – providing nice focused light while marrying the style of the two rooms together.

Furniture tone: Both rooms feature dark wood – a good choice with the wall and furniture colors. The wood floor mirrors this tone, creating a unified whole. This level of thought and coordination takes full advantage of all the plusses of an open floor plan – maximizing comfort and style.

China Cabinet Provides Great Home Office Storage

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A home office that’s visible from other places in a home, particularly one like this one in the Fulton Homes La Quinta model at the Oasis at Freeman Farms community, needs to look like residential space. Metal file drawers and other evidence of a working space don’t suit most homes.

One smart solution for home office storage comes from the dining room – with a full-size china cabinet. If you choose one like this piece in the photo, the glass distracts from the office supplies within the cabinet, and it looks elegant and appealing in this room.

A china cabinet can hold files, paper and office supplies, as well as current projects. Combined with the simple desk and leather chair, the space feels more like a study than an office. Add a laptop that can be put away when you’re finished, and you have a fully functioning office that still works well in this residential environment.

With the help of a wireless router, peripherals such as printers can be located in another room with every computer in the house able to access them. The laundry-room countertop provides a great location for central access – out of the way yet convenient.

Be sure to decorate your home office with the same care you use in the rest of your home. Placing a floor lamp in the room allows you to work with softer lighting than a ceiling fixture. Art and accessories finish this space and connect it with the rest of the house. Window coverings should be selected to minimize glare on your computer screen.

With just a little thought and effort, you can have a home office that is functional and still suits your home’s style.

 

Home Office with a Home Feel

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If you are one of the growing number of people who work from home, or if you would just like an office to handle household accounts and work on your computer, you may want to include a home office in your new home.

The challenge is to keep the room functional while still fitting with your home rather than looking like a commercial space. This room, from Fulton Home’s Malibu model in the Shoreline community, does a good job of managing both.

The desk provides plenty of work space, even with the laptop sitting on it. A few drawers facing the chair will hold current papers and office supplies without creating the office-feel produced by file cabinets.

There is plenty of light in the room. The ceiling fan provides ambient light and a bit of breeze to chase the mental cobwebs away when you’re thinking too hard. The nice large window gives plenty of natural light during the day and the floor lamp serves for task lighting at night.

The desk chair is not a traditional office choice, but it provides a home touch that benefits the room. The informal wing chair to the side makes a useful companion chair – moving across the desk or behind it for the convenience of a visitor.

The nicest feature from a home office standpoint is the bookshelf/china closet to the right. With its glass cabinet doors books become decorative as well as functional. The three drawers at the bottom provide space for more office supplies or papers.

Only a few years ago, the look of this room would have been hurt by scads of wires and cables. Now, thanks to Wifi capabilities, the most you may need is a cord to the nearest electrical outlet for the laptop if you want to conserve its battery.

To keep your home office as inviting as this one, look for furniture you can repurpose the way they did in this room. With some art and window coverings this room is inviting as well as useful.