For 2017 my spring-cleaning routine inspires dreams of chucking my entire workspace and starting over from scratch. Cleaning? I prefer demolition. <\/p>\n
This time around I\u2019m starting to scratch out a clean-sheet approach to SOHO (Small Office, Home Office) design. So, for my fellow SOHO\u2019ers on Saipan and elsewhere, I\u2019ll share some of my thoughts. And, as always, you can always email me some of yours. <\/p>\n
As for the easy side of the equation, a typical office will, of course, have bookshelves, file cabinets, and office supplies. Nothing says that we have to keep all of this stuff in our small office, though. We can stage things as necessary. <\/p>\n
Next we ponder the chair and desk. I\u2019ll note a positive trend on the chair note: Among manufacturers there seems to be wider appreciation for the merits of good ergonomics. After all, our working days add up to working decades. Our backs and necks are eventually going to answer to our behavior. <\/p>\n
Most of my office time is spent reading books. This is surely easier on the body than computers are. Still, just to be safe, I bought a comfortable desk chair for under $200. It\u2019s adjustable in so many dimensions that you\u2019d need a string theory expert at MIT to count them all. I don\u2019t want to sound like a hectoring geezer, but, yeah, a decent chair is worth it.<\/p>\n
One of my friends went Full Goober on the gig and bought a $1,100 office chair to stave off backaches. If I ever have so much as a hint of desk-induced back pain, I\u2019ll be going Full Goober as well. <\/p>\n
Well, so far, so simple, but I have realized that much of the SOHO realm involves what I\u2019ll call flat space. This can be tricky. <\/p>\n
A desk is the most obvious example of a flat space. It\u2019s what comes to mind when we think of an office. But a desk isn\u2019t the last word. It\u2019s just the first word. <\/p>\n
A desk is a lousy place to park appliances such as printers, fax machines, scanners, copiers, binding machines, hole punches, routers, and so on. This stuff really needs its own territory. I found myself accumulating this equipment piece by piece, which makes sense, but finding space for it on a piece-by-piece basis winds up making less sense.<\/p>\n
The best solution I can come up for appliances is a long surface that runs along a wall. Even for a very small office, a seven-foot run isn\u2019t overkill. <\/p>\n
This leads me to my third type of flat space, which I\u2019ll call assembly space. This is where we collate documents and do similar pull-a-project-together stuff. Having a dedicated surface keeps these tasks from intruding on desk space. Before I ponder this any further, I have to mention a SOHO element that we haven\u2019t yet considered.<\/p>\n
That element is visitors.<\/p>\n
Are we entertaining clients? Even if we\u2019re not, we\u2019ll probably be hosting collaborators at some point. An office as a one-person sheath is a lot different than an office that has room for more than one person.<\/p>\n
One of the best solutions I\u2019ve seen is to have a small conference table that seats, say, six people. The good news is that when guests aren\u2019t present the table can do double-duty as the assembly space I mentioned. Unfortunately, a six-person table, with generous enough wall clearance to keep people from feeling pinned down, might require more space than a SOHO can provide. <\/p>\n
What then? Well, we can always go junior-executive style and put a couple of office chairs opposite the working side of the desk. No, I don\u2019t like this arrangement. Yes, I have used it. <\/p>\n
Space permitting, we can split the difference by having a sitting area with, say, a couple of armchairs and a low table. True, this table isn\u2019t going to work very well for the assembly space I mentioned, but it\u2019s better than nothing. Overall, this arrangement is probably better than the junior-executive approach. I intend to use the armchair-and-low-table arrangement the next time I\u2019m putting together a SOHO. <\/p>\n
As I fit these elements together I\u2019ll note that the long surface for appliances seems simple at first glance, but it can claim a lot of wall space. Unlike a bookshelf, it provides very little vertical latitude for the presentation of its elements. People will reach up, or down, to grab a book. But to use a fax machine? Nope. To use a copier? Nope again. I\u2019m no interior decorator, but, for my utilitarian outlook, the wall space above this surface can be reclaimed by hanging photos or other stuff that you wanted to display.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m still closing in on my ideal SOHO design. I don\u2019t yet know how much space it will require. What I do know is that there\u2019s no substitute for experience. The decades I\u2019ve spent using SOHO space have taught me things I never would have considered up front. Ah, such is the road to demolition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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