Whether you work from home full time or temporarily, having a designated space to work at home is important. It’s important in creating a home office to meet specific needs. Privacy, professional décor, and light are factors to consider when choosing a space. How can you accomplish this without spending too much money? Utilize space you already have available in your home. Repurposed items and shopping at repurposed stores are ways to save money. Here are some ideas in order of least expensive to most expensive to create your home office space.
Inexpensive Ideas
Where can you find space in your home? Using an area in your home for personal use and not professional use can be created with furniture. Placing behind the couch table/desk, an entry desk area, or a hallway desk are simple ideas to create a space for doing household bills.
If you have a spare bedroom, a closet can be used to place a desk and shelving. This still leaves the room available for guests and utilizes an unused spare bedroom closet. If you do not want to take up closet space, placing a desk in the corner of the spare bedroom and using a room divider for privacy is another choice.
Moderate Expense Ideas
Creating an office in your garage may be another option. With some paint, shelves, and décor you can use a portion of your garage for office space. If you would like a more permanent space you can build a room in a portion of the garage. This may require you to give up car space to accommodate the area and affect the resale value of your home.
As a homeowner, you need to know that most homes have dead space in the walls. This may require more effort and expense, but will add value to your home. If you have a blueprint of your home, you will be able to see where your home has dead space. Consulting a contractor is another way to identify where the dead space in your walls may be. Once you find these areas, you can remove sheetrock and reframe the area to create a small home office.
Attics are another area you can remodel to create a home office. Doing this project yourself you can minimize the expense of building a home office with the cost of materials only. If you don’t feel confident or have the time, you should contact a licensed and insured contractor to help you with the home remodel.
Higher Expense Idea
You can add a three or four season room to your home. An existing deck can be made into this space or you can build an addition onto your home. Adding to your home will increase the value of your home. Our owner of CH Construction built a four-season room onto his deck area for an office. The office has so much natural light and has a peaceful view of nature. He chose sliding glass doors on two sides of the room to create a nice cross breeze. He added a wood stove for heating to decrease the utility cost. When designing a three or four season room, you can create it to fit your family needs.
Finally, when adding a home office to your home consider the tax benefits. Mike Savage, a CPA and the CEO of 1-800Accountant stated, “If you are self-employed, The deduction can be calculated in two ways: the simplified method or the actual method. Under the simplified method, taxpayers can calculate the amount of their home office deduction by multiplying their business square footage by $5 per square foot, not to exceed 300 square feet,” Savage explained. “Under the actual method, taxpayers can calculate the potential deductible amount by pro-rating their expenses with their business use.” If you are unsure of what qualifies as deductions, you can visit the IRS home office deductions web page. If CH Construction can assist you in creating a home office, give us a call.
