I work from home full time, and live across the road from the English Channel (St Leonards On Sea), in a Victorian Maisonette. My office is on the 3rd floor with bay windows overlooking the sea.
The office room itself is largish, with 1.5 sofas, and a small table for tea. I have two desks - one sitting and one standing. My sitting desk is for writing code only. My standing desk is for everything else (meetings, email, etc.) My code-desk faces the sea so I can look out at the blue for inspiration if I need to. Above my standing desk is a whiteboard for notes/todo/etc. I have a small closet with a printer and supplies. I have to shield my workhorse machine from the sun sometimes so it does get too hot in the summer. In the English winter (10 months out of the year), it makes for a nice natural cooling system :)
I use an Ikea Gallant desk. My main computer (home built Linux system running Windows via VirtualBox) sits underneath, and a large-screen Asus monitor is on top, as does my laptop. I try to keep the physical desktop devoid of non-essential stuff, but this is a losing battle. I also have a video projector directed at the wall in front of me.
My office is full of books, plants, my LEGO projects, and other miscellaneous toys and distractions. The walls are decorated with classic covers from Byte Magazine
I have one window with three bird feeders to my right. I can also look into my backyard (through another room).
Ha! We share quite a few lego models. I probably "invested" 2K on Legos so far but have recently slowed down purchases. Following instructions for building models seems to shut down a part of my brain and just destresses me. Not sure if I'm alone in that or not. Nice man cave though!
There's something really great about the Gallant desks. Cheap, roomy, well built, no fuss. I have the version with T-Legs, but I can't honestly go back to other kinds of desks.
A single Ikea desk, beside a window that has good blinds, on the 19th floor of a building with a view over North London.
Under the desk a UPS, NAS (18TB RAID6), the WiFi plus a single powerful workstation (16-core, 192GB RAM, SSD for main drive, 6TB RAID0 scratch disks).
On the desk some books, a bottle of single malt whisky, a playstation (dusty and not wired up) and a scanner. A single large monitor (high quality). A desk lamp with halogen bulb.
My home office is just a corner of a room, with all the tools I need nearby.
It is slightly messy, I tend to have mail opened on the desk, and small things around it.
It's comfortable, a place I enjoy being.
But it's also a work zone... my viewing of videos and entertainment is on a television purposefully not visible from the desk. Meaning I must leave the work environment to enjoy entertainment with others.
I'm not fortunate enough to be able to create a study room that could be an office. Space is limited, but the ideal would be a comfortable library space, lit well enough (but not enough to harm the books), and quiet.
That's my home office, I live on what used to be a working dock in the north of England but was filled in and used for housing so it has a nice feel, I love it because I'm 200ft from a massive river (great for thinking walks http://i.imgur.com/ibfcLn2.jpg, not so great when a massive storm surge nearly topped it in Dec heh - http://i.imgur.com/P2DRT0h.jpg).
I can't stand working in a mess, I have to tidy both offices before I can settle down to do any real work and I've found as I get older I need more quiet to work properly I don't seem to be able to tolerate distracts as well as I could, I'm lucky in that while I'm starting a business and money is tight the North East of England is very cheap to rent in so we still have a two bed with a spare bedroom for an office :).
http://i.imgur.com/yB0IN1e.jpg is my work office (which feels like home sometimes!) rented in an old Victorian building the council run, high ceilings and lots of space and light which is nice.
My wife and I run what I would categorize as a micro-saas business and we both work at home. She works part time at a standup desk that I made from furniture parts, and she also uses a drafting style chair that I made from parts purchased on the internet. LOL @ her clocks, looks like one needs a battery. To her left is a small white board.
My desk is also somewhat home made and doubles as my hobby project studio for song writing and recording. Behind my chair (not visible in the pic.) are a 10" sub woofer and a larger white board. I have a tiny bike mirror over my right monitor to avoid a bad shock when someone stops by my desk while I'm deep in a project. The tiny red button on the left corner of my desk is to engage/disengage the sub woofer. Most days my dog sleeps on the rug by my chair and amazingly I have never rolled over him.
Does your monitor on the left ever rattle from music?
Just that slight amount of difference in height would drive me up a wall. You both have nice setups though!
Our house is part of an old 12th century church. The part of the house that runs into this church is my home office. We work here with 2 (sometimes 3) people.
The view is amazing, but I've crammed it with cheap functional desks and chairs and shelfes/tables. The walls are painted a nice purple, but the rest is all about "while we're not making a bunch of money, we can't have nice things".
Do mind that our equipment ( Computers, screens, (3D-)printers etc) is all up to date, no savings there, obviously.
I work from home full time and live on a Pier in the Hudson River right across NYC. My home office has a large solid wood workbench and a Herman Miller Aeron chair. There’s an iPad mounted on the wall running Status Board app showing some vital stats.
All work is done on my 27” iMac, while watching the curious life of liveaboards in the marina outside and looking at the Manhattan skyline…
I don't have an office, even though I work from home.
I alternate between:
1. An amazing café on the beach - warm, sunny, coffee (and beer!) on tap
2. The garden - if it's the right time of year, Wifi is lacking so tend to stay more focussed
3. Barstool in Kitchen/Stood up working
4. Dining room table - white wall behind, good for video calls
5. Lounge
6. Trains
I'm fortunate enough to be able to work with just a laptop, no large screens/mice/speakers/headphones/paper etc needed, so I don't feel that I'm without stuff if I'm not at a desk.
Curious what you do? I do web development & programming and feel that when using a laptop my productivity can nosedive unless I have a full size keyboard.
Student here, so I guess my office is less mission-critical than others.
I took an old door, nailed an edge around it, and varnished it. Got two trusses from Ikea for pretty cheap (~$30 each), and two "night stands" that work really well as shelves.
I have an absurd amount of desk space and I find it great for working. My desk is messy, but I'll get a picture up in a sec.
Its a great idea to use an Apple keyboard... for taking a picture of your workspace. Then back to the real keyboard.
More seriously, I really wish any USB keyboard could be "converted" into a Apple Bluetooth keyboard (as far as the Mac knows) - they have great connectivity, battery life.
Nothing special about my current home office (which consists of a desk in my bedroom), but back when I lived in Brooklyn, I had a makeshift standing desk with a nice view of Manhattan.
We moved to the mountains in Central Arizona about 14 years ago and my wife helped setup my home office: large book cases, a huge teak desk, and an ergonomic chair. I have a view of the red rocks/mountains, which is nice.
So, I have a nice home office but I don't much use it because I prefer working in different places around our house and outside, weather and available shade permitting. I use my office mainly when I need to plug my laptop into a large monitor. Otherwise I like to use a light weight lap desk and roam. About once a month I will work out of a coffee shop.
Edit: I do a few days a week from home, with a fair amount of video conferencing. White board is critical to get me out of my chair to draw out what's in my head.
I just recently (i.e., last week) finally splurged and bought a motorised sit/stand desk. I've been wanting one for some time as I work from home full time and want to stand for part of the day.
I just bought the frame and reused the desktop from my old desk. I was tired of using plastic boxes and phone books as monitor stands, and couldn't find good stands that had the height I wanted, so made my own using some wall-mount monitor/tv brackets: http://imgur.com/YwyRwVl
The window on the right looks out on the cat-run in the back yard (when the curtain isn't drawn) and that's a hermit crab tank on the left (which is currently unpopulated until I automate the humidity controls.)
Speakers and lots of kids photos are on a shelf that is currently behind the monitors, but can be seen when sitting. My back is to the door, so there is also a little rear-view mirror glued to that shelf to make it harder for the kids to sneak up on me. (Tying bells to collars worked okay with the cats, but not so well with the children for some reason which is strange as the cats are much more cunning.)
* Motorized adjustable standing desk from the Ikea (Linak legs; whole thing was under €600), in standing mode. Yes, fixed standing desks are not going to work, you need to be able to alternate between standing and sitting throughout the day.
* On the left, Synology DS213j, TP-Link TD-W8970 ADSL2+ Modem router and Meissner 750VA UPS to keep my internet connection going during Eskom (South African electricity supplier) power outages / load shedding (tested, works a treat! with laptops charged, I can continue accessing internet for a few hours of no power. Telkom exchanges have their own power supplies)
* Cheap laptop with IPS display (see http://wp.me/p1dVx9-6k ) connected to Samsung external LCD. You're seeing Emacs on the left with Zenburn theme, and Intellij IDEA 13 on the right with Darcula IDE + Solarized Dark editor themes, everything still on Ubuntu 12.04.
* My corner is indeed quite cluttered, but comfortable to work in. :)
I have a pretty horrible office room (1BR condo with the living room/kitchen combination turned into basically an office with a couple desks), but what I do like is my desk itself -- it's one of the IKEA glass-top galants, and I have 2 dual-monitor ergotron arms with 3 x 24" U2410 dell monitors and a laptop stand for a mac. I have a PC (win7 or ubuntu, dual boot) with lots of RAM, SSD, etc.) connected to all 3 monitors, but one of the monitors switches with the macbook pro 17" left on the desk, and another is used for any "guest" system I'm working on via vga, dp, or hdmi. I have 2 keyboards always on the desk and sometimes a third.
When I move, I might switch to retina displays on arms for my primary systems, but 32 is more tempting than 24. Standard-definition displays still work great as big consoles, too.
My wife and I share a room on the brightest corner of our house. It's mainly furnished with Ikea, which is cheap, functional and has a clean style that is well suited for an office environment. I have a workstation with a couple of 24" monitors mounted to the wall. I was concerned that the desk wouldn't be large enough, but having the monitors off the desk surface frees up more than enough space for me. My mechanical keyboard makes typing at my desk a bit more fun. And I can take my laptop over to a surprisingly comfortable chair in the corner of the room when I get tired of sitting at my desk.
We also have a puppy that likes hanging out in the room and is a great source of distraction.
I cycle between working in my basement "office", my living room with a convertible standing desk, and when the weather is permitting, out on the back yard semi-patio-thing.
[+] [-] binarymax|12 years ago|reply
The office room itself is largish, with 1.5 sofas, and a small table for tea. I have two desks - one sitting and one standing. My sitting desk is for writing code only. My standing desk is for everything else (meetings, email, etc.) My code-desk faces the sea so I can look out at the blue for inspiration if I need to. Above my standing desk is a whiteboard for notes/todo/etc. I have a small closet with a printer and supplies. I have to shield my workhorse machine from the sun sometimes so it does get too hot in the summer. In the English winter (10 months out of the year), it makes for a nice natural cooling system :)
-- EDIT -- here is a very poor quality photo: https://twitter.com/binarymax/status/460012757317074944/phot...
[+] [-] GeneralMayhem|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] canadiancreed|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] barefoot|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jeffbarr|12 years ago|reply
My office is full of books, plants, my LEGO projects, and other miscellaneous toys and distractions. The walls are decorated with classic covers from Byte Magazine
I have one window with three bird feeders to my right. I can also look into my backyard (through another room).
Here are some pictures:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5815303/jeff_home_office...
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5815303/jeff_barr_home_o...
[+] [-] throwaway1979|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bane|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jskonhovd|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eswat|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zura|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] buro9|12 years ago|reply
Under the desk a UPS, NAS (18TB RAID6), the WiFi plus a single powerful workstation (16-core, 192GB RAM, SSD for main drive, 6TB RAID0 scratch disks).
On the desk some books, a bottle of single malt whisky, a playstation (dusty and not wired up) and a scanner. A single large monitor (high quality). A desk lamp with halogen bulb.
My home office is just a corner of a room, with all the tools I need nearby.
It is slightly messy, I tend to have mail opened on the desk, and small things around it.
It's comfortable, a place I enjoy being.
But it's also a work zone... my viewing of videos and entertainment is on a television purposefully not visible from the desk. Meaning I must leave the work environment to enjoy entertainment with others.
I'm not fortunate enough to be able to create a study room that could be an office. Space is limited, but the ideal would be a comfortable library space, lit well enough (but not enough to harm the books), and quiet.
[+] [-] pedrocr|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] asselinpaul|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] noir_lord|12 years ago|reply
That's my home office, I live on what used to be a working dock in the north of England but was filled in and used for housing so it has a nice feel, I love it because I'm 200ft from a massive river (great for thinking walks http://i.imgur.com/ibfcLn2.jpg, not so great when a massive storm surge nearly topped it in Dec heh - http://i.imgur.com/P2DRT0h.jpg).
I can't stand working in a mess, I have to tidy both offices before I can settle down to do any real work and I've found as I get older I need more quiet to work properly I don't seem to be able to tolerate distracts as well as I could, I'm lucky in that while I'm starting a business and money is tight the North East of England is very cheap to rent in so we still have a two bed with a spare bedroom for an office :).
http://i.imgur.com/yB0IN1e.jpg is my work office (which feels like home sometimes!) rented in an old Victorian building the council run, high ceilings and lots of space and light which is nice.
[+] [-] voorloopnul|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yukinon|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] measure2xcut1x|12 years ago|reply
My desk is also somewhat home made and doubles as my hobby project studio for song writing and recording. Behind my chair (not visible in the pic.) are a 10" sub woofer and a larger white board. I have a tiny bike mirror over my right monitor to avoid a bad shock when someone stops by my desk while I'm deep in a project. The tiny red button on the left corner of my desk is to engage/disengage the sub woofer. Most days my dog sleeps on the rug by my chair and amazingly I have never rolled over him.
My desk: http://i.imgur.com/OfYjTgX.jpg Her desk: http://i.imgur.com/vI4GR7H.jpg
[+] [-] 3solarmasses|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] malnourish|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] atook|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zura|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] jyothepro|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] neals|12 years ago|reply
The view is amazing, but I've crammed it with cheap functional desks and chairs and shelfes/tables. The walls are painted a nice purple, but the rest is all about "while we're not making a bunch of money, we can't have nice things".
Do mind that our equipment ( Computers, screens, (3D-)printers etc) is all up to date, no savings there, obviously.
[+] [-] moonlighter|12 years ago|reply
All work is done on my 27” iMac, while watching the curious life of liveaboards in the marina outside and looking at the Manhattan skyline…
https://www.dropbox.com/s/nhjki7bpcpfpemw/HomeOffice1.jpg
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0u7lbw9d1t0n7ek/HomeOffice2.jpg
https://www.dropbox.com/s/5uzavsek2dz80qf/HomeOffice3.jpg
(Sorry for the poor pics, had to shoot against the sunlight coming in)
[+] [-] noir_lord|12 years ago|reply
I also live on a river though my view is not as good as yours I do love been able to take a walk when I need to think.
[+] [-] OldhamMade|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Cacti|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] richbradshaw|12 years ago|reply
I alternate between:
1. An amazing café on the beach - warm, sunny, coffee (and beer!) on tap 2. The garden - if it's the right time of year, Wifi is lacking so tend to stay more focussed 3. Barstool in Kitchen/Stood up working 4. Dining room table - white wall behind, good for video calls 5. Lounge 6. Trains
I'm fortunate enough to be able to work with just a laptop, no large screens/mice/speakers/headphones/paper etc needed, so I don't feel that I'm without stuff if I'm not at a desk.
[+] [-] thejosh|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bichiliad|12 years ago|reply
I took an old door, nailed an edge around it, and varnished it. Got two trusses from Ikea for pretty cheap (~$30 each), and two "night stands" that work really well as shelves.
I have an absurd amount of desk space and I find it great for working. My desk is messy, but I'll get a picture up in a sec.
Edit: Heres that photo http://i.imgur.com/eAY7xZC.jpg
[+] [-] Void_|12 years ago|reply
http://www.reddit.com/r/battlestations
http://www.reddit.com/r/macsetups
[+] [-] swah|12 years ago|reply
More seriously, I really wish any USB keyboard could be "converted" into a Apple Bluetooth keyboard (as far as the Mac knows) - they have great connectivity, battery life.
[+] [-] mcgwiz|12 years ago|reply
http://www.scrambledbrains.net/2011/02/20/standing-desk-conf...
[+] [-] leemac|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] maccard|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] braveheart1723|12 years ago|reply
Not that they write better code, they're just prettier :D
https://news.layervault.com/stories/8613-ask-dn-your-workspa...
[+] [-] yen223|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mark_l_watson|12 years ago|reply
So, I have a nice home office but I don't much use it because I prefer working in different places around our house and outside, weather and available shade permitting. I use my office mainly when I need to plug my laptop into a large monitor. Otherwise I like to use a light weight lap desk and roam. About once a month I will work out of a coffee shop.
[+] [-] gdubs|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jmandzik|12 years ago|reply
https://twitter.com/Justin_Mandzik/status/460080620329508864
https://twitter.com/Justin_Mandzik/status/460082804827881472
Edit: I do a few days a week from home, with a fair amount of video conferencing. White board is critical to get me out of my chair to draw out what's in my head.
[+] [-] anotherevan|12 years ago|reply
Here is the new setup (in standing position): http://imgur.com/cgRoSUu
I just bought the frame and reused the desktop from my old desk. I was tired of using plastic boxes and phone books as monitor stands, and couldn't find good stands that had the height I wanted, so made my own using some wall-mount monitor/tv brackets: http://imgur.com/YwyRwVl
The window on the right looks out on the cat-run in the back yard (when the curtain isn't drawn) and that's a hermit crab tank on the left (which is currently unpopulated until I automate the humidity controls.)
Speakers and lots of kids photos are on a shelf that is currently behind the monitors, but can be seen when sitting. My back is to the door, so there is also a little rear-view mirror glued to that shelf to make it harder for the kids to sneak up on me. (Tying bells to collars worked okay with the cats, but not so well with the children for some reason which is strange as the cats are much more cunning.)
[+] [-] cpbotha|12 years ago|reply
* Motorized adjustable standing desk from the Ikea (Linak legs; whole thing was under €600), in standing mode. Yes, fixed standing desks are not going to work, you need to be able to alternate between standing and sitting throughout the day.
* On the left, Synology DS213j, TP-Link TD-W8970 ADSL2+ Modem router and Meissner 750VA UPS to keep my internet connection going during Eskom (South African electricity supplier) power outages / load shedding (tested, works a treat! with laptops charged, I can continue accessing internet for a few hours of no power. Telkom exchanges have their own power supplies)
* Cheap laptop with IPS display (see http://wp.me/p1dVx9-6k ) connected to Samsung external LCD. You're seeing Emacs on the left with Zenburn theme, and Intellij IDEA 13 on the right with Darcula IDE + Solarized Dark editor themes, everything still on Ubuntu 12.04.
* My corner is indeed quite cluttered, but comfortable to work in. :)
[+] [-] ux-app|12 years ago|reply
it's nice to finally have a decent space to work in. Having a comfortable spot that I enjoy being in has definitely improved my productivity.
My goal is to eventually work from home.. maybe 2014 will be my year :)
[+] [-] capitalisthakr|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rdl|12 years ago|reply
When I move, I might switch to retina displays on arms for my primary systems, but 32 is more tempting than 24. Standard-definition displays still work great as big consoles, too.
[+] [-] arscan|12 years ago|reply
We also have a puppy that likes hanging out in the room and is a great source of distraction.
http://imgur.com/a/vj3mt
[+] [-] chops|12 years ago|reply
Relevant pictures:
https://twitter.com/jessegumm/status/460019341355143168
https://twitter.com/jessegumm/status/460020285786578944
https://twitter.com/jessegumm/status/460019950338727936