Whenever Robin Katz wanted to grab a bite to eat or do laundry, she was in the ideal place: her home office in an alcove off the kitchen, near her washer and dryer. Trouble was, that location wasn’t particularly conducive to working.
“There were just too many distractions,” said Katz, 47, a graphic designer who recently relocated from Lakeview to a loft in Wicker Park, where her office occupies an area above the kitchen and can be reached by way of a staircase.
“I was ready for something different,” noted Katz, who said the space, which measures 25 by 9 feet with 8-foot ceilings, was a factor in buying the loft. “That’s why I put it in the upper space of the loft; I wanted it to be away and not seen, separate from my living space.”
In her loft, she noted, the wall curves near the staircase “so it’s invisible. That was my biggest beef in the other place. Anyone coming into my home could hang out with me in the kitchen, and everything was there, including my office. There was no practical way to close it off.”
Katz has plenty of company. According to IDC, a marketing research firm, there are about 10.5 million full-time home-office households in the U.S., which can make it particularly important to create separate spaces for working and for living.
But without properly organizing a home office from the get-go, said home office designer Neal Zimmerman, those who work from home full-time can be stifled almost before they start.
“I think what typically happens is, if some people don’t set up properly from the beginning, they fail at working at home and think the main reason is because working at home doesn’t work for them. But what really wasn’t working was the way they set up,” said Zimmerman, owner of Neal Zimmerman and Associates in West Hartford, Conn.
Zimmerman, whose book, “At Work At Home” (Taunton Press), said privacy and protection, along with separation, are key elements in effectively working full-time from a home office.
“Privacy has to do with cordoning off space so you’re not interrupted. Interruptions can come from any number of places, including the outside, family or animals. Working at home is no longer taboo, but conducting business on the telephone while the dog is barking is still not acceptable, so privacy and separation from the rest of the home are important,” he said.
And in terms of protection, Zimmerman noted, “you don’t want your kids or animals to upset your work space while you’re not there. You have to protect things like papers, documents and computer files.”
Naperville resident Tom Coyne certainly understands that. The father of three, who is in sales, and his wife recently moved, and his home office now temporarily occupies a space in back of the house with French doors on the first floor. Eventually, like in his previous home, he said he’d relocate to the basement after it is finished. “That gives you more separation from the main part of the house, and privacy on phone and conference calls.”
The basement is workable, as long as moisture, which can wreak havoc on equipment, is avoided, but Zimmerman believes a better option would be to convert a bedroom. “It’s generally heated or air conditioned as well as ventilated, and you have lights, electrical power, carpet, windows and blinds, lots of things that an attic space or garage don’t have.”
A garage, he said, really only works if the space isn’t needed for a car. “You have to determine what you have to work with and if it’s feasible. If you’re going to convert a basement, attic or garage into office space, it’s all going to have a cost attached.”
Dan Christin was determined to come up with additional separation between his working and living space when he moved into a condo on Chicago’s Northwest Side, where he and his assistant work in a spare bedroom converted into a home office on one of two floors he occupies. Before that, Christin had a two-bedroom, 1,300-square-foot condo in a high-rise.
“I had to have about half the square footage I have now. All I really had was a bedroom, living room and a second bedroom, which was the office,” said Christin, 40. “You want to have space to be able to concentrate. When you enter the room here, it’s work time. I wanted to make it like a think-tank space.”
Christin, whose work space measures 14 by 12 with 8-foot ceilings, says he thinks he has gotten a much better idea of what he requires out of a work space since he began working out of his home full-time a few years ago. “As you grow in business, you realize what you’re going to need. If I have people here for a meeting, or others who come by to make a presentation, I have a much more comfortable space to do those things in than I did before, when I had to take home meetings in the living room,” he said. “It just didn’t feel right, and doing business is all about making impressions.”
Chicago real estate broker Susan Berman said plenty of separation feels right to her clients: “A growing number of our buyers work exclusively from their home. Most find it important to be able to separate their work activities in a space apart from their living spaces — the more separate, the better.”
And the more planning put into a home office space, the better, said Zimmerman. “Once you know what you’re going to need, and what space might be available, you have to see if the pieces of the puzzle fit together.”
The only practical way to do that, he said, is by doing a layout of your space. “It doesn’t necessarily need to be professionally done. You can take graph paper and measure your room, measure the things you have in it, where you plan to put it and get a rough idea of how it fits. If you can’t do it yourself, it pays to get the help of a professional designer, even just for a few hours.”
Had Katz not found a new home, she planned to take the time to create separation by, for instance, redoing her kitchen. In the end, however, she wanted more.
“I think I went from a traditional older building to this because I wanted a drastic change that would meet my need for quality personal and work space,” she said. “If I went into something like a more traditional three-flat, I would have to had to do something like use a second bedroom for an office. But as it happens, the way my loft is designed, it has worked out perfectly.”
Coyne said that he and his wife equally value space. “It’s important that while I am working that I’m not interfering with what’s going in her day-to-day activities. Her office is the home, and mine happens to be there when I’m in town. … Your office is always there, so separation helps keep things orderly.”
Whether you live alone or not, said Zimmerman, separation of work and personal space is integral. “Even if you live alone, you don’t want to take over the entire home for an office because then you never get away from it. If you have guests, you’re really inviting them into your office, not your home.”
You don’t have to tell that to Katz, who felt she almost never could escape work in her former home. “I couldn’t help but walk over and do things like look through bills. I always seemed to end up there.”
