The Home Office… More Than A Den
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Most homes today have some type of space for the home office. It may be a bedroom converted to an office or a dedicated space such as a den. A specific place to pay the bills, work at the computer, do that extra work brought home from the office, or for those that work at home, space for everything a home office requires. The needs of a person who works from home may be totally different from those that need an office area for paying the bills, making a grocery list or taking notes while talking on the phone. Obviously, different people have different needs. To some, a home office is a place to quietly work at a desk or computer. To others, it is an absolute retreat, a place to work, quietly read, or watch television. In a recent presentation on 2009 home trends conducted by Nancy Hugo, CKD, a certified kitchen designer in the Scottsdale area, http://www.nancyhugo.com/ a new home office trend has become to replace rented office space for working space at home. According to Nancy, in these economic times, many people are asking themselves if it makes sense to rent office space in a business complex when they can work at home? It is Nancy’s belief that as the economy turns around many people will remain working from home offices more than ever, even more reason to design and accent the home office to a customer’s specific needs.
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At Woodridge Custom Builders LLC, helping our custom home buyers create a great house plan and home design incorporating the features of their perfect home office pays dividends in the end. The old saying, “failure to plan means planning to fail” is often true for the home office. The home office shown in the photo 1 is a home office for custom home buyers that are retired. The office has beautiful upper and lower cabinets with a built-out desk area. Bottom drawers in the lower cabinets are designed to hold files. The upper cabinets include exposed bookcases as well as closed cabinets. The office is functional in design, not overly large, included a double door entry and located off the formal areas of the house.
The next two photos highlight a beautiful home office in a Tuscan style home. The office includes two walls of floor to ceiling bookshelves with lower cabinets. The lower cabinets include drawers for storing files as well closed storage areas. This custom home buyer enjoyed reading classic literature and enjoyed displaying the book collection. The desk designed to sit freely in this home office, required the electrical, CATV, and telephone outlets be placed in the floor before the concrete slab was completed. This takes great planning since incorrect placement can put these outlets in a walking path rather than near the desk where they were intended. At Woodridge Custom Builders LLC, we help our custom home buyers make these decisions before the house is completed and impacts furniture placement. This office also included a wall-mounted television; again, placement of the television was pre-planned so the CATV outlets could be placed correctly. The office included a sofa so the family could use this as a quiet reading area. Since this office was designed as a home office, the architect included a full-size closet for storing business files, records, etc. The dark stained alder wood cabinets, richness of the bookcases, classic furniture style mixed with contemporary pieces gives the look and feel of a very worldly office. Adding to the worldly look are the multiple clocks displaying various times from around the world.
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The contractors at Woodridge Custom Builders LLC, enjoy working with customers to design and deliver the home office its custom home buyers are looking for. Planning ahead adds to that success!
Woodridge Custom Builders LLC 