One of the advantages of working from home is having the option of taking a spare room, equipping it with custom home office furniture you designed yourself, and ending up with the office you’ve always dreamed of. Your motivation goes up, your productivity shoots through the roof, and you start getting used to the taste of success. But it can make a big dent in your budget unless you go about it the smart way. This article will show you how.
First, you need to understand that having custom-designed furniture commissioned with a furniture firm or a small team of artisans is the only way you will get made-to-measure, perfectly finished pieces, unless you are a master carpenter yourself and have the tools, the skill and the time. The bottom line is, “custom” in its purest form costs money. We will assume here that you are decided to take this route anyway.
The first trick to making the most of your budget is to decide on a concept you’re willing to stick with. A few minor tweaks here and there along the way are probably fine, but it won’t be fine when you tell your carpenter that you decided to make it a square table after he’s sawn the materials to the round shape you decided on yesterday. Deciding on a concept and sticking with it firmly will avoid this waste of effort, materials and money.
Absorb all the interior design ideas you can by reading books, magazines and looking at websites. If you want, you can consult with an interior designer. It can be argued that sticking to classic designs will be a safer investment than going for the unique and the cutting-edge which can quickly turn into the outdated and the tacky. Consult with your friends and family members whose tastes you admire. Take your time, mull it over, and then commit it to paper.
This will be your Master Plan. It can be a highly technical computer-rendered architectural drawing or just pencil sketches, but it must be a definitive design, complete with measurements, color schemes, and the way each piece will be fitted to its assigned space.
Many creative types like fiction writers and abstract painters will do a first draft or a more-or-less finished work, and then completely leave it for a length of time. Some will sleep on it for a night while others will start work on another, completely different project. This way, when they return to the piece they left earlier, they’ll be looking at it with fresh eyes and will be able to make much better tweaks. You can do the same with your Master Plan.
Also, give yourself a reasonable deadline. Sleeping on it and tweaking the day after is good, but you do want to move on from making drawings into making actual custom home office furniture. At the same time, don’t hurry. Try to strike a good balance between planning and action.
Finally, consult with as many contractors as you can. Discuss the plan with them, get their input and suggestions, and get a price quotation in writing. While you do this, your plan will inadvertently get tweaked by professionals, so take their advice with an open mind and pick the nuggets of information that will make it better.
Even if you have your custom home office furniture made one piece at a time as budget allows, or even by a different contractor per piece, as long as you stick to your Master Plan, mistakes will be minimized and you will save money.