This guide outlines three smart strategies to design a home office when you have a tight budget to work with.
Although there are many companies that are bringing their workers back into the office, most are doing a hybrid type of situation. This means that there are only a couple of days per week or month in which workers have to be in the office. The rest of the time they will be working from home.
During the pandemic, many remote workers were not set up to work from home effectively and saw it as a temporary thing. Now that it looks like it will be permanent, it is important to design a home office as professionally as possible.
3 tactics to design a home office on a budget
The trick to design a home office on a budget is to do things as cheaply as possible. In this article, we will go over several ways that you can design a home office on a budget and still be able to work professionally.
1 – Check out Ikea
One of the first stops before you design a home office and buy the equipment should involve a trip to Ikea. They are experts at organizing small spaces. Since your office will need to fit neatly into your living space, it is a good idea to head there to buy your furniture for the office.
Ikea has a reputation for being cheap in quality as well as the price. While it’s true that there are some items that will not stand the test of time, there are plenty of others that are well constructed and durable. I wondered whether the Ikea desks are worth it and was happy to find that they are a great bargain and are very durable.
In addition, there are a lot of organizational products that will help you do a lot with just a little bit of space. These are generally low-cost things like shelves and even furniture that double as storage containers.
Even if you are not going to buy anything there, it is a very valuable resource for getting ideas to design a home office. Since they have a lot of showrooms set up with all the products that would be necessary to work in a small space, it’s an excellent way to get some ideas based on the space that you have. You’ll be able to see firsthand exactly how you can also design your space and what types of products you can use to maximize the space.
2 – Look at online marketplaces
There are a lot of ways to save money on just about every piece of furniture or product that you need to design a home office by going online. There are groups for upcycling in which they are giving away the stuff they no longer need. There are also apps and pages on social media networks where people are selling their second-hand items just like a virtual yard sale.
Before buying anything new to design a home office it is a good idea to take a look at what is available online. Chances are that you’ll find exactly what you’re looking for at a great price. If you aren’t able to find what you’re looking for right away, then you can set up alerts on most of the marketplace apps so that when the item you are looking for pops up then you can try to buy it right away.
3 – DIY solutions
There are times when your restricted space is going to make it difficult to find the right furniture and organizational products that will work to design a home office. Some desks are too big, or there are angles that won’t work with a standard type. The floor doesn’t give you much room so you’ll need to use the vertical spaces effectively.
When this is the case, you are probably going to need some custom-made furniture and other items. This can cost a fortune. If you are even the least bit handy with tools then you can construct your own furniture. Pallet furniture making is very popular these days as you only need to pay for the hardware to make things and then your own time.
This allows you to work with the space that you have. You can design a desk that incorporates the wall space and any angles it has according to the measurements. With a few tutorials on Youtube, you should be able to put something together in a few days.
Shelving is also something that can easily be made in an afternoon and also utilizes recovered material like pallets or construction waste. This allows you to use your space effectively and spend just a few dollars compared to hundreds.
