Office layout ideas

It is Easter Sunday as I write this post and let me wish you all a Happy Easter where ever you may be!

So although the new office build is currently on hold due to the Covid-19 lockdown period and building work has stopped, I am still able to brainstorm ideas on layout for the new office.

Here I am going to share with you my plan and ideas so far and I hope you will find this interesting and do please leave comments or get in touch if you have any suggestions as my plans are not yet final and I can change things up and around!

So here we go.... the new office is approx 3m x 3.5m in overall floor size (still waiting for some walls to be built so final accurate measurements to be made later).

If you remember inside the Shed, I had 3 desks all running together in a L shape.

These in size were two 1200mm wide desks and one 1500mm wide desk.

At the start of the build and ideas for Inside the Loft, I must admit that I thought that I would simply replicate how I had the desk layout inside the shed into the loft. 

It seemed to make sense as the new loft office is slightly larger than the shed.

But, I started to surf Pinterest and Instagram for office setups as well as watching office set videos on YouTube, something I have always done and enjoyed.

So I said to myself, let's take some time here and rethink a design and desk layout for the new loft office.

I made a copy of the architect drawing on my iPad and have started a layout idea and here is how that drawing looks...

Now previously when I was in the box room in my house, my desk was up against the wall.

That is a very common place to put a home office desk but I found it restrictive and I wanted more 'freedom' on how my desk was positioned and to be able to sit and feel comfortable and to enjoy the experience of sitting at the desk.

And that gave me the purpose for the design and layout, I want to simply enjoy just sitting at the desk. Everything else that follows after will be a bonus and should fit perfectly.

The new loft office has two windows that let in lots of great natural light. In the picture of the layout for the desk above, you can see that I have the desk position coming off the wall so that I am not up against the wall.

This will allow me to sit and in front to the right of me is the main window looking west out over the back of our house where there is a public playing field and open space. Further behind that on the horizon is London itself and you can just make out Canary Wharf and the city of London with the Shard and Gherkin standing tall.

So far this feels like the best solution fo Amy theme of wanting to just sit at my desk. Behind the desk is the velux roof window so if I turn and look over the back of my right shoulder I will be able to see the sky. Again that is a really nice aspect to the office!

OK so looking at the web for ideas I have decided that I want to go minimal as much as possible and you can see from the picture above on the layout design, there is only one desk, not the three I had inside the shed.

When I am thinking of the physical layout I am also considering the colour scheme.

To be honest for ease and speed, to start with, the office in the loft will be painted with white emulsion.

But the carpet will be a light grey colour as that is the colour we going with for the rest of the rooms in the development of our loft conversion.

I also have to keep in mind that the office will at some time on the future, possibly revert back to a bedroom. So I need to keep that in mind as I design the loft office.

This is the velux window I mentioned that shall be 

ehind me when I am sitting at the desk

Now with all that has been said, there are many other details, like managing storing paperwork and files for my business, pens paper and other peripherals that I have collected over the years and other technology hardwire.

I also have my photography equipment that I want to place into my new loft office so that will be planned in at a later stage.

Another aspect to the new Inside the Loft office is make it so that I can record YouTube videos in the office. That requires so much from lighting and to how the camera position will be located when filming. 

So there is a lot to consider in terms of including another function to the office other than just a desk usage office requirement.

While I talk about the use of the office, there is also a need to use the office as a painting studio because I want to start painting again, watercolours and acrylics.

So in recap the use of the office is for:

1. Desk - running the business - admin and paperwork

2. Photography - storage of equipment

3. Filming - YouTube videos created inside the loft

4. Painting - watercolours/acrylics - easel setup

There is so much to think about and I have not even started to talk about cable management and position of power sockets!

But for now I hope this has given yo an idea on how I am approaching the new office and trying to plan out the right solution that I can create once the office has been finished.

Thank you for your time and as I mentioned, do please leave a comment and any ideas or advice for the office design that you would like to make!

See you soon! Stay safe! - Steve