Uninstall the Home Office
on 11.29.06, 04:21am in life • digg this • comments (5)
Like most folks, I have a dedicated area in the house where my desktop computer sits (in fact, both my wife’s machine and my machine sit here). Some call this space a ‘home office‘, others call it ‘the computer room’, but for me, it’s become a cold white-walled phantom zone (which still has builders paint) that I rarely use any more. And after seeing these great office spaces, I’ve realized that my home office is just wasted space.
Back at the end of 2004, I made some resolutions in an attempt to simplify my life a bit. The first step was to stop being my own ‘home IT department’ and to cut back on the number of machines floating around my house. Today, I’m down to using a single laptop, my wife has her own laptop (my old T40), we have an iMac in the kids playroom and all of our media is stored on a home server. Sure, there’s a few ‘devices’ around the house: the theater is run off an XBox 360 and the living room has a Tivo, but that’s about it (see The Exploding PC and Is OS Irrelevant?).
You can probably tell where I’m going with this - I’m about ready to take the next step to simplify my life: I’m going to ‘uninstall’ my home office.
My current thinking is to turn the room into more of a study and get rid of the horrible desk that’s in there. Turn it into a place where my bookcases are, with warm colored walls and two large comfy chairs where I can sit and read, use the laptop, or just detox if I want to get away for awhile (well, with two kids, it’s more of an attempt to get away).
Dave Kekish (November 29, 2006 @ 6:00 am)
We must be running parallel lives. Last weekend, my wife and I were talking about turning our home office into a spare room. We’d have to dismantle the custom built desk (one 10 foot long desk, hanging off the wall and the laser printer would have to stay but thats the long of it.
At one time we had 5 machines, multiple monitors etc in there, now we go there to grab something off the printer and thats it.
Life changes.
Steve (November 29, 2006 @ 6:20 am)
Sounds like it!
The only ‘computer’ remnants that will probably be in the study is the printer - no where else to really put it, but I can tuck it someplace out of sight…
Lou Amadio (November 29, 2006 @ 7:40 am)
While moving to the Silicon Valley, I had to downsize the house by almost half. In the process, one of the casualties was the computer room. We will have a charging area, but not the huge sitdown type area we once had. And while I like playing games, I’m convinced that “computer games” are irrelevent - being replaced by “console games” - like there is time for either…
I like what you are turning the room into - sounds like a nice quiet area…. Like there’s time for that too
Beau (November 29, 2006 @ 11:45 am)
Good idea Steve. I did the same thing with a spare bedroom earlier this year. I decided I needed a “tech-free” zone in the house, and the only bit of electronics allowed in the room is a stereo (well, and a clock). I lined the walls with good quality bookshelves and bought a big comfy La-Z-Boy. No tech books allowed in the bookshelves either. Those stay in the office, which I also just recently repainted a non-white color (I went with a sky-ish blue, but not sure I will stay with it) to make it less harsh.
I still need a home office (else I spend too many hours at the actual office), but I did want to make it simpler and more inviting, instead of a punishingly sterile room that was impossible to enjoy.
Beau
alex (December 1, 2006 @ 5:15 am)
How about a garden office? See http://shedworking.blogspot.com