Home Office Ideas for Small Spaces

Working from home can bring many benefits to your working day, such as avoiding the daily commuter rush, spending more time with your family and more flexibility to your daily routine. However, it can often be difficult to escape distractions and find focus in an environment you use predominantly for your leisure time.

With a few smart changes, even the smallest of available spaces can be turned into a productive working space. Making the most of unused corners, under stair spaces, your outdoor shed, or that tiny box room that needs a clear out are all good places to start. The following home office ideas for small spaces might help you to create a more enticing and productive working environment.

Desks for small Home Office spaces

If you have a large desk, you could better use the space by increasing under-desk storage. This means you can have easy access to any important files, whilst still being able to clear the surface of the desk when you need to concentrate.

Downsizing your desk will mean there is less room for unnecessary clutter to build up, as well as saving valuable floor space – particularly useful if you work from your computer a lot and you don’t really need the extra space. 

You could use objects with multiple functionalities for your desk too such as a chest of drawers – place your laptop and some essential stationary on top, pull up a chair and you’ve got a ready made desk.

Home Office Colour schemes

If your office space is a corner of another room, why not consider painting or adding a strip of wallpaper to just that corner? It’ll mean you associate that space and colour with work, and might help you achieve that important working headspace more easily. 

If your office is the small spare bedroom or basement, creating a bright, contemporary environment by matching your wall choice to any rugs, blinds or curtains might be the perfect theme for inspiring a productive working mood.

Creative solutions to Home Office shelves and storage

Finding new ways to store essential items can help make the most of any existing space you might have. Using mood boards above your desk to display any important memos, photographs and inspiration can brighten up any small space, and means you won’t just be staring at a blank wall. You could put a cork board up, or hang some fabric from the wall and pin things to that, adding additional texture and colour to your space.

Floating shelves above the desk itself makes for a great way to save on floor space whilst providing stylish and easily accessible storage.

Home Office Lighting

Make the most of the natural light available to the room by using soft furnishings, mirrors and light shades of paint – such as off white colours to keep the space warm and inviting. 

With darker spaces, install a bright overhead light and utilise lamps or other concentrated light sources nearer the desk space itself. This helps protect your eyes, whilst also keeping you alert and awake for utmost productivity.

Adding lighting for ambience can also help in sprucing up a small space – such as fairy lights or lights with calming colours to alleviate any stress and inspiring you to get on with any work. 

Accessories for Home Office

This gives you the chance to curate some of your favourite items to be on display – enabling you to feel relaxed in the space, and limiting any clutter that has a habit of building up. Candles, photographs and pot plants make great additions to any small space, as well as more functional pieces such as bookends, storage baskets and pen pots, to keep smaller items together and easily accessible when you need them.

If you’re struggling with ideas you may want to consider the help of an interior designer. Whether that’s a freelancer or professional company with expertise in compete office design and simply office refurbishment.