When you work from home, you have a lot to store–even if most of your work is done digitally (and, personally, I still think the paperless office is ages away), there are still office supplies, shipping supplies, electronic equipment (oh! the cords! battery rechargers! etc), manuals, reference books… It’s making me mildly dizzy just thinking about all the *stuff* that needs a home.
Office bookcases are one good storage solution, especially when you use coordinated boxes to wrangle the small stuff and keep it from looking messy. But, sometimes, you really need closed storage and that means home office cabinets.
Sure, you can go to your local home improvement store and pick up ready-made cabinets. But these are designed for kitchens which means their dimensions might not be right for your space.
Another option is to have the cabinets custom-built by a local carpenter. The great thing about this option is that then your cabinets will fit your space perfectly. Typically, kitchen cabinets are too deep for most home office needs, so having something shallower built will probably make for more convenient storage. This option will probably cost less than you’re expecting and will let you customize every last detail from the door style to wood choice to whether you have pull out shelves to how many drawers you have.
Your third option is to take a look at some of the gorgeous pre-built options on the market. There are some great home office cabinets available these days from retailers ranging from Pottery Barn to Ballard Designs. Of the three options, this is usually the priciest, but you’ll certainly get lots of use from the additional storage and it may be well worth it.
One consideration about either of the first two options is that, depending on your house, a built-in home office may increase your home’s value while the furniture styles of the third choice are best if, for instance, you’re using the third bedroom and plan to convert it back to a bedroom when you sell your home.
So, what do you think? Are home office cabinets right for your space? And which option sounds like the best fit?
7 Comments
[…] current plan is to pick up some home office cabinets, and to position the bookcases to flank them to give the appearance of a built-in storage unit on […]
When we redid our kitchen, I kept the old cabinets and had them refinished for my office–it’s been really useful having all that built in storage and I love that I have a nice kitchen counter height workspace, too. I didn’t use the upper cabinets, just the lower ones, which I think leaves the room looking a lot more spacious, too.
I’d never considered cabinets in my office, but you’re right, they’d be a really useful way to get additional storage. Bookcases are so intimidating because they put everything out in the open!
My dream office is full of custom built cabinets that’ll store all my scrapbooking supplies. Flat file cabinets, display cases–ah! I can picture it perfectly. Now to just save the money to make it a reality ;-).
I’m trying to convince my boss to let me transition to working from home part time, and am so glad to have found your site–you’ve given me so many great ideas for creating the space… Any hints on convincing a boss to say yes?
Thanks for weighing in, everyone! Jen, that’s a fabulous question–I’ll put it on the schedule for an upcoming post. And congrats on deciding you want to make the switch–we’ll see if we can’t help make it a “no brainer” yes for your boss.
This just motivated me to renovate my home office, but it won’t be nearly as beautiful as the sound of yours.
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