OVER THE LAST seven months, Irish homes have evolved into offices, schools, creches and colleges, with people all over the country working and studying from home.
Even if you’re lucky enough to have a dedicated office-type space in your house, it can still be hard to focus – particularly if your home is lacking the resources you’re used to at work or college.
In a survey back in April from IrishJobs.ie, 79% of employees said they were missing their ‘usual working environment’, with 25% saying they were struggling to adapt to a space without the normal office facilities.
Clare Lekhwar lives with her husband Vikas and their two young kids in Kildare. The couple are both studying part-time, and they wanted a room that would provide “peace and quiet” for assignments and online lectures. With that in mind, they added a desk and chair to their spare room earlier this year, but the room quickly became over-cluttered with study supplies and items that didn’t have a home elsewhere in the house.
“There’s no organisation, there’s stuff everywhere: files, boxes, things, pencils, everywhere,” she told us. Clare wanted a room that felt more like a streamlined office, and less like a messy spare bedroom with a desk in it, but she wasn’t sure where to start.
Sarah Reynolds runs Organised Chaos, a professional organising service helping homeowners to tackle the busiest – and often messiest – areas in their home. She works with each client to find the right purpose for every space, and to come up with storage solutions that will work in the long term.
For Clare and Vikas’ project, Sarah started by categorising every item in the room under a specific theme: admin, family, finance, items for the bin, and so on. She worked with Clare to figure out what would go and what would stay, and then implemented some smart storage solutions to clean up the space.
“I want this room to become a really comfortable, productive area,” says Sarah. “The main aim is that Clare can walk in, sit down and get to work easily, then leave again and get back to family life.”
Watch the video above to see how Sarah transformed Clare and Vikas’ office/bedroom, from how they store their study supplies to how they light the room. The verdict? “It’s gorgeous, I love it,” says Clare.
I love all the little storage ideas for the paperwork, I’m not very good with stuff like that so it’s a great help.
For Sarah, whatever kind of work or study space you may have in your home, be it a spare room or a corner of the living room, it’s important to make the effort to set it apart from other areas of the house:
Doing this allows us to keep our home life and our work life separate. That way, we’re not only more productive at work but we can switch off more easily at the end of the day or at the weekend, helping our anxiety and our stress levels too.
If you’re studying or working from home, FBD Home Insurance policies with contents active will automatically cover the loss or damage of your owned home-office equipment up to a limit of €3,800. This includes your office furniture, business computers, fax machines, photocopiers, computer aided design equipment and business telephone equipment. Get a quote at fbd.ie.
Cover available automatically with an FBD Home Insurance policy when contents are active. Existing customers do not need to update their policy or to contact FBD Insurance. FBD Home Insurance policies do not cover business visitors, or if you carry out any profession, trade or business from your home, such as customers relating to your profession or trade. Cover excludes optional additional ‘accidental damage’ unless noted on your schedule. Acceptance criteria, terms and conditions apply. Underwritten by FBD Insurance plc. FBD Insurance Group Ltd trading as FBD Insurance is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland.
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