Many regard working from a home office a luxury. Never having to deal with a commute to work or put up with a stuffy, uninspiring office environment sounds good, right? But not everyone realises that working from home can be tough, too. Differentiating home life and work life becomes challenging, and staying focused at home isn’t always easy.

The key to getting the balance right and making the most of your time is having a good, inspiring working environment of your own at home. But what does that mean and what does it require? Here, Modern Garden Rooms have put together a guide on everything you need to know when creating the ultimate home office. From the tech you’ll want around you to how you’re going to light it up – you don’t need to look anywhere else for guidance.

Let’s jump in.

Working from a home office

The most important decision when creating your home office is the space you create it in. Some people use a back bedroom; others dedicate a whole room in their house to creating an office. And both are good ideas if you’re short on space outside the house. But if possible, we always recommend creating an office in your garden, separate to your home.

The Cube Room is an ideal shape and size to create a home office in the garden. The reason we recommend keeping your office separate from your home is that home life and work life should be kept separate. And having an office outside of the house will help you associate the things you do there more with work than relaxing and pleasure.

Tech

Hard Drive

No home office should be without at least one hard drive. The work you’re doing is, after all, your livelihood. Imagine if a corrupted file or one slip of the finger meant that you’d lost a week’s worth of graft. A good hard drive should have enough space to backup all the work you’re doing on it. We’ve selected a couple that are portable too, allowing you to take your work with you should you find yourself away from your home office.

The Best:

Adata se730

Specs

Capacity: 250GB

Weight: 33g (1.1oz)

Colours: Gold/Red

Price Range: £110-130

The Budget:

Kingdian 120gb ssd

Specs

Capacity: 120GB

Weight: 45g

Colours: Black

Price Range: £40-50

monitor

Whether you’re using a desktop computer or a laptop, a good monitor is vital. You’re going to be staring at it for hours every, single, day. You don’t want to have to strain your eyes to view it. Here we’ve rounded up a couple of our favourite monitors for your home office this year so far.

THE BEST

AOC Agon AG271QG

Spec

Screen Size: 27”

Refresh Rate: 165Hz

LED Backlight: Y

Widescreen: Y

Price Range: £530-560

THE BUDGET

ASUS VC239h

Spec

Screen Size: 23”

LED Backlight: Y

Widescreen: Y

Price Range: £120-135

SPEAKERS

Most people who work from home like to blur out the background noise of traffic or children running through the house with music or ambient noise. A good pair of speakers will help provide quality, immersive sounds that should keep your focus on point.

The Best

ELAC Debut B6

Spec

Speaker type: 2-way, bass reflex

Tweeter: 1 x 1-inch cloth dome

Crossover Frequency: 44 to 20,000 Hz

Sensitivity: 87dB at 2.83 v/1m

Price: £280-300

The Budget

Sumvision Psyc Monic

Spec

Transmission Distance: Up to 10m

Frequency response: 90Hz-20KHz

Sensitivity: 80dB

Output power: 20W

Price Range: £37-45

mouse

You might not think that a fancy mouse is a vital component for your home office. Surely the mouse that comes with your PC is good enough?

Trust us when we say that once you’ve tried out one of the products below, you’ll never want to switch back. With multi-button functionality they’re designed to make your life a whole lot simpler.

The Best

Logitech MX Master

Price Range: £80-90

The budget

VicTsing 2.4G

Price Range: £5-8

keyboard

A good, ergonomic keyboard isn’t just going to make typing easier and faster. It’s going to help protect your wrists, too. Below we’ve selected keyboards that have a mechanical switch, making them more accurate with each key press and giving off more of a typewriter feel. Check out our favourite below.

The best

Cherry G80-3000

Spec

Dimensions: 500x255x50 mm

Number of keys: 105

Colour: Black

Price Range: £60-70

The Budget

Logitech Wireless Touch K400 Plus

Spec

Dimensions: 354.3×139.9×23.5 mm

Hot Keys: 13 integrated media keys

Connection: USB Unifying

Price Range: £20-40

Headphones

Don’t want to annoy your neighbours blasting ambient sounds and music? Need to listen closely to audio as part of your job? Then these headphones will help do the trick. When  working from a home office these can be really useful. We’ve covered a higher costing headphone and a cheaper in-ear alternative here.

THE BEST

Denon AH-MM400

Spec

Colour: Black, wood

Connection: Wired

Form factor: Over-ear

Price Range: £210-235

the budget

SoundMAGIC E10

Spec

Colour: Silver, Red, Blue, Black

Connection: Wired

Form factor: In-ear

Price Range: £30-40

Phone Dock

Today, you can never be too far away from your smartphone. Especially if it’s how the company you work for connect and work with you. Check out some of the best desk phone docks on the market today and always have your phone visible and fully charged.

The Best

Twelve South HiRise

Price: £15-25

The budget

Pure Quality iPhone Dock

Price Range: £5-10

printer

No office is complete without a printer. But there are so many out there. Which do you chose? Here we’ve selected two of our favourite all rounder’s. When working from a home office you are going to need a printer!

The Best:

Epson WorkForce WF-3620DWF

Spec

Dimensions: 41.7×44.9×24.3 cm

Colour: Black

Wireless: Y

Price Range: £70-110

The Budget

HP Officejet Pro 6230

Spec

Dimension: 46.4×38.5×14.6 cm

Colour: Black

Wireless: Y

Price Range: £50-60

FURNITURE

The furniture you decorate and select to go in your home office is going to make a big difference. You’ll be sat in that chair, working at that desk for at least eight hours a day. It needs to be comfy and look good. To help guarantee that you don’t break your back working in your home office every day, we’ve put together some of the best furniture for home offices on the market.

Desk

The Best

Ergotron WorkFit-T

Price Range: £320-340

The budget

The Ready Desk

Price Range: £117-140

chair

The simple chair – surely you can buy any old chair to plonk your butt down and get to work?

Well think about it. When your working from a home office you’re sat in that chair for up to eight hours a day. It needs to be more than just a place to rest your legs. It needs to support your back and pelvis and feel comfortable for long periods of time. Here we’ve listed our two favourites.

The Best

Herman Miller SAYL office Chair

Price Range: £430-450

The Budget

Torkel Swivel Chair

Price Range: £70-90

Lighting

Good lighting not only helps you stay productive working from a home office, but will help protect your eyes from any serious damage while staring at a computer screen. Where possible, we obviously recommend natural lighting over artificial, but we understand that this isn’t always feasible.

The Best

Anglepoise Type 75 Floor Lamp

Price Range: £120-130

The budget

Habitat Bobby Floor Lamp

Price Range: £10-15

Colours

Many people don’t realise how colours can affect work ethics in office environments. But they do, and in a big way. The colour’s you choose to paint your office can affect energy, creativity, and your focus. Here’s a quick rundown of how colours change our mindset.

Blue – The colour blue is often associated with a stable and calming feeling. It’s recommended for productivity and is also associated with trust, intelligence, communication, and efficiency.

Green – If you work long hours, then green is a wise choice for the office. It doesn’t cause anywhere near as much eye fatigue as others and has a calming effect. It is also associated with peace, balance, and harmony.

Red – If much of your work involves a more ‘hands-on’ approach and physical activity, consider adding some reds to the office. It helps increase heart rate and often can evoke passions and emotions. It’s also associated with courage, strengths, stimulation, and excitement.

Yellow – If work involves a lot of creativity, consider yellow. It’s known as the ‘optimistic colour’ and can help your creative juices flow. It’s also associated with friendliness, self-esteem, and confidence.

Accessories

The working from a home office is almost complete. You’ve bought the desk you like most, picked out the chair that’s most likely to be kind to your back and invested in the tech you need. Now it’s time to mop up the last little bits and kit your office out with the accessories that complete your home office. Check out the little bits that we recommend purchasing to finish off your workspace.

Paper shredder

Make sure that every document you print remains private with a quality paper shredder. There are some basic shredders out there, but we recommend investing a little more money to make sure that your documents are destroyed correctly.

Fellowes Powershred 79Ci

Price Range: £140-150

ProAction 10 Sheet 21 Litre

Price Range: £30-45

Office plants

Bring a little life into your workspace with some office plants. when working from a home office you may think this isn’t the best place for plant life to thrive, but there are a few out there that will flourish. And they’re easy to maintain, so that you don’t spend more time pruning than working! Here are some of the most appropriate plants for office life.

Mouse Pad

Kensington Duo Gel Mouse Pad

fan

CSL Desk Fan

coffee mug

Hidden animal mugs