It’s month, uh, six (?!?) of working from home. WFH posts are now old news. Hopefully you’ve found a rhythm and figured out how to keep cruising through your to-do list. (Still working on that? No shame! Maybe check out this post?)
But maybe there are little nagging problems you’re noticing now that working from home no longer feels temporary.
Since we started working from home, I’ve claimed the kitchen table as my work station. And mostly, it works fine. There’s a bookshelf behind me when I’m on video calls, and I can easily relocate to a comfy chair when the mood strikes.
But recently, a few things about my temporary home office started to driving me crazy.
First, I couldn’t find anything. I need to access a lot of materials for my tutoring calls with students. All my binders and books and pens and index cards were split between crates and Trader Joe’s bags that I lugged out to my work station every morning. It was annoying. After one too many calls where I had to sprint to a different room to grab a forgotten binder, I knew I needed a different system.
I also was very, very done with working at our kitchen table. Our kitchen chairs are not especially comfortable – even after I added a foam cushion from Aldi and one from Ikea. By the end of the day, my butt hurt and my back was sore. Heck, even my elbows hurt from leaning on a wooden table for five hours.
Something needed to change.
Are you in a similar situation?
Are you still schlepping work stuff out of your living room each night? Can you find the Post-its when you need them? Is that kitchen chair you’ve been using physically painful?
Let’s take some simple steps to improve your work from home space.
Because even if this work from home situation “only temporary,” your environment still matters. The little things that aren’t quite right pile on top of each other. They eat up space in your brain and chip away at your happiness and focus.
You, my friend, are worthy of a workspace that doesn’t distract or hinder you. Instead, you can give yourself a space that helps you do your best work. And you don’t have to have enough space for a gigantic desk or an entire empty room to make it happen.
Ready to improve your work from home space? Start here.
If you’re creating a functional workspace with any limits on your budget or space, you’re going to have to prioritize. So what matters most to you? Budget? Comfort? Aesthetic? You get to choose.
As I was upgrading my space, I decided I needed to prioritize pieces that didn’t take up a lot of room or didn’t render our kitchen room table unusable for, you know, actual eating. I also didn’t want furniture that would have no functional place in our apartment after I’m no longer working from home.
Given those priorities, here’s what worked for me. Maybe it will for you, too?
P.S. Any Amazon links are affiliate. Writers love you forever when you use those links for your purchase, as it sends a few pennies our way at no extra cost to you.
For flexible storage: a rolling cart
For storage that doesn’t permanently have to live in our dining area, I decided on a rolling cart. Its footprint is pretty small, and it can do double-duty as a printer stand whenever I go back to the office. Plus, if anyone was ever to come over for dinner, it can be wheeled out of sight.
After much searching, I decided on this one from Amazon. It’s utilitarian but not completely unattractive, and it fit my budget. Fair warning: it’s not the most sturdy thing in the world if you’re frequently rolling it around with a heavy load.
More options
If you don’t have binders to store, an Ikea Raskog cart (or one of the many dupes from other retailers) is quite compact. For anyone with lots of materials that need to be moved around your house, an old-fashioned library cart might do the trick. If you’ve prioritizing style, a cute bar cart could also work great.
For more comfortable seating: a seat cushion and a standing desk converter
For my uncomfortable desk situation, I threw around a lot of options. Maybe we could fit a standing desk in our bedroom? Or maybe I could find a pretty office chair I wouldn’t hate looking at from the living room?
In the end, I realized (again) that I didn’t really want any big new furniture pieces. Plus, office chairs that are both attractive and comfortable cost A LOT of money. Instead, I found a standing desk converter for when I want to stand up and seat cushions for when I don’t. Spoiler alert: I love them both.
The Standing Desk Converter
The standing desk converter turns any normal table or desk into a standing desk. It sits right on top of our kitchen table, and it’s low-profile enough that I can sit down and work normally on its surface when it’s lowered. When I can’t handle sitting any more, I press a lever on one side to raise it to a comfortable height. The desktop rises so smoothly that I can do this in the middle of tutoring sessions without a hitch. I also love this model because the front edge is angled – no sharp corners digging into your wrists!
When WFH life is over, this can be folded flat for relatively easy storage – or I might just take it to my office and use it there! FYI, we did also buy this desk pad to keep the table underneath from getting scratched, so that’s something to keep in mind.
The Seat Cushion
When I do want to sit down, having a high-quality seat and lumbar cushion (i.e. not one from Aldi) has made a huge difference. After reading tons of reviews, I went with the Purple Simply seat cushion and lumbar cushion. They felt like a bit of a splurge, but the set was cheaper than buying an entirely new office chair. I gotta say, every dollar has been worth it. Both cushions are really and honestly wonderful.
Purple cushions are made from this material that sort of feels like you’re sitting on supportive Jello? It’s not the immediate soft, cushiony feeling of memory foam, but the comfort lasts a lot longer. I’ve survived marathon board game sessions without a complaint. Plus, the Simply cushion was designed to use in the car, so this will be easily repurposed after I’m back in an office chair. (Or my husband will steal it for himself. It’s been threatened already.)
More options
In the market for a similar set-up? This is the standing desk converter I bought. If you use a desktop monitor instead of a laptop, you might want to explore something with multiple tiers like this. This version is also a little prettier if working on giant black contraption will cramp your style.
If you do have room for an extra chair, gaming chairs can be a great budget-friendly option for comfortable seating. I also strongly considered this chair, which is a pretty option if you’ve got room for extra furniture.
Keep on keeping on, my friends. Let’s make our work spaces work so we can keep slaying our to-do lists!