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Get The Most Out Of Your Home Office

7 Things You Can Do To Get The Most Of Your Home Office

Your home office gives you the freedom to skip the morning commute and even work in your pajamas if you want.

However, it’s important to make the most of the space you have to create an office that fits your work needs. Whether it’s a large space or something as tiny as a closet, the right cabinets and furniture give you a work oasis that makes your job seem more enjoyable.

If you’re just creating your first home office or remodeling your old one, don’t just settle for a chair and desk. Get more from your home office than you ever thought possible.

1. Start With Cabinets

While a desk and chair might seem like the combination to organize the rest of your office around, your cabinets should be the top priority. Why? Every office needs storage. Whether it’s shelves to store a few books or floor-to-ceiling cabinets to store equipment, storage is a must.

The good news is you can create any type of home office cabinets you want. Just a few common options include:

  • Floor-to-ceiling on one or more walls
  • Cabinets along the lower half to double as extra workspace
  • Cabinets along the upper half to maximize vertical space
  • Extension of your desk
  • Free-standing cabinets and bookcases

Another benefit of starting with your cabinets is you’re also able to create the entire atmosphere for the room. Want a deep, old-school look? You’ll want a darker wood or a darker stain. Want to brighten a darker office? Use a lighter wood or use a brighter paint, such as white to better reflect light and brighten the room.

2. Combine Your Desk And Cabinets

When you’re short on space, you might have to make your cabinets do double-duty. You don’t need a separate free-standing desk. Instead, build a desk into your cabinets. By creating a cubby to work in, you leave more space to move around. Plus, you still get ample storage space. Remodelholic has a great example of a custom desk built into the cabinets.

3. Create Fold Out Spaces

Low on space or sometimes need extra desk room? What about a cabinet door that folds out into a table or a table that expands when needed? Furniture and storage that fold out into larger pieces allow you to have more room to set things and work when you need it, but conveniently fold up out of the way when you need more space to move around.

4. Think Vertically

In tight spaces, you don’t always have room for floor-to-ceiling cabinets. In fact, you don’t have much room at all for cabinets at the floor level. However, don’t forget about vertical space. Adding shelves or cabinets above your desk gives you extra storage, but doesn’t get in the way otherwise. Want a more open look and feel? Stick with thin cabinets or open cabinets to give the illusion of extra space.

5. Add Organization Under Your Desk

Often times, a desk looks just like the one in our blog post’s image. While that’s nice, it doesn’t let you get the most out of your home office.

For instance, what about all the cables hanging off your desk for a light, computer, charging cable and more? You could have a custom desk (or add on to an existing desk) with built-in cable storage. Simply having a shelf directly under the desk and one or two well-placed holes allow you to organize all your cables easily.

What about items you need often? Adding shelves or drawers under your desk are an ideal way to maximize the space you have. After all, you’re probably not using all the available space with just your legs.

6. Use Shelving Or Cabinets For A Desk

Don’t want a traditional desk or just don’t have room for one? Get more space for cabinets and moving around by simply using a shelf or cabinet as your desk. A shelf is pretty self-explanatory, but a cabinet might seem more complicated since you don’t have a place to sit ergonomically.

This is a quick fix by adding a slide-out keyboard tray to a cabinet along the floor. Slide out the tray and suddenly you have the perfect place to sit and work.

7. Get Creative With Drawers

Drawers aren’t just empty boxes. Use them to add space with slide-out platforms. Organize office supplies with a built-in organizer. Replace the baseboard with a secret drawer at the floor for added storage. Remember, organizers and creativity let you turn drawers and even cabinets into something amazing.

Ready to create the perfect home office you’ve always dreamed of? Contact Edgewood Cabinetry to learn more about our home office solutions.

Image: ErikaWittlieb

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Bespoke Office

The Secret To Designing Your Own Bespoke Office

No one loves sitting in a bland cubicle or a cookie cutter home office. They’re boring and mind-numbing, neither of which helps you with work.

Designing your own bespoke office if like creating an oasis that’s all your own. You get a custom design in the wood, colors and styles that suit you best.

After all, if just walking into your office makes you feel happier, you’ll be more eager to start your day. However, there are a few secrets to ensuring you get the office of your dreams.

Know Your Style Theme

Do you want something more modern or maybe more classic? What about a minimalist design? Odds are, you have some type of theme in mind. Before you work with someone to help build your bespoke office, know your theme. This helps them to better understand what type of furniture you have in mind, including which types of wood work best.

If you need some inspiration to figure out your theme, Architectural Digest has 50 inspiring home office designs and House Beautiful lists 20 great productive office designs.

Consider What Makes You Happy

Stop for a moment and think about what makes you truly happy. Perhaps you love an office with a bit of greenery, but space is limited. Consider designing shelving with open shelves on the outsides next to your window. Sit a few plants on the shelves without sacrificing desk space.

Do you love the look of old offices filled with darker woods and embellished carvings on shelves, chairs and desks? Design a bespoke office around what gets your creative juices flowing. The right office environment is scientifically proven to make you more productive. So, consider what types of elements make you happiest and design around those.

Keeping It Private

Some offices don’t have four walls to maintain privacy. However, this doesn’t mean you can’t have your own private office. The key is to design your own bespoke office with furniture that creates a more private environment. For instance, if you’re sharing an office with someone else, you might consider a floor-to-ceiling bookcase to split the office.

Another option would be to opt for a caddy-corner design with angular desks that fit into opposite corners. A large bookcase in the center of the room serves as a privacy screen and creates a unique looking office.

Before meeting with a builder, carefully consider how to make your office seem as private as possible so you’re not constantly being disturbed.

Leave Room To Move

While some people are lucky enough to have large rooms to use for their offices, others have little more than a closet. This doesn’t mean you have to be cramped.

Instead, talk to your designer about creative bespoke furniture options. You can customize the designs to not only fit smaller spaces, but still leave you room to move. Perhaps you could have a desk that looks like it belongs in a billionaire’s office, but it actually rolls to the side to reveal a short hidden bookcase.

Talk to your builder about the space available. You can still have the office of your dreams, but it might just be on a smaller scale.

Choosing Your Storage

To optimize productivity, you want storage that’s easy to get to, at least for the items you use most. After all, you wouldn’t want to have to walk across the room every time you needed to answer the phone. This is why you place it on your desk.

Depending on your design theme, you’ll want to talk about custom-sized drawers to store files, supplies, manuals, tech accessories and more. With custom drawers, the items you need most fit perfectly versus getting lost in deep desk drawers. You might even include a hidden compartment to hide a flash drive with all your passwords.

The same goes for bookcases and shelving. While most traditional offices do have bookcases, you may want something different. You may prefer cabinets that have doors that match you chairs or floating shelves to showcase your accolades.

Are you ready to design your own bespoke office? Contact our team today to start discussing your design ideas.

Image: ErikaWittlieb

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cabinets other than in kitchen-edgewood cabinetry-clayton nc

Cabinets Are Not Just for the Kitchen

Thinking outside the kitchen triangle

Cabinets are really just built-in pieces of furniture, and really are useful in so many more places than we usually put them. Let’s take a look at cabinets in the master bedroom.

That chest of drawers you have in your bedroom that holds clothes has to be moved from time-to-time to clean underneath. When you do finally move it, you find the things that have fallen behind or gotten under it. Maybe an earring you thought you’d lost, a sock you couldn’t find, or even money. Now think what it would be like if that was a beautiful cabinet, with no gap behind it and no space underneath for dust and lost items to hide.

Do you have a TV in your bedroom? A slimmed-down version of an entertainment center would make that TV space give you more storage as well as make the space more lovely. You can even have doors that open when you want to turn the TV on and close when you don’t want to see it. You could have drawers underneath for more clothes, or cabinets that would hold bed linens, or even some of each. Once again, there is no need to move a heavy piece of furniture to clean or look for lost items under.

You could even have a built-in headboard and night stands. This is a space that often goes unnoticed, but we always have a need for places to put things like books, drinks, clocks, and lamps. A headboard with night stands would go so well your other cabinets, making the room truly match and look lovely.

These are just a few ideas of places you can use cabinets, besides the kitchen or bathroom. If you look around your house, you are sure to find more. Because you don’t move cabinets around and they are secured to the wall, they stay looking lovely longer than most furniture.

At Edgewood Cabinetry LLC, we  build and install the finest custom cabinetry, and we look forward to helping you with all your cabinetry needs. Contact us today for more information.

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