North Shore Home-Office Conversion

Has Covid-19 Made You Consider Converting a Room Into an Office?

COVID-19 has changed many things about the world that we live in. One of the biggest realisations was that people really could work from home with no loss of output for the organisation. Remote working has been an option for many years, but it took the pandemic to show people and enterprises that it was a possibility after all. Now, although lockdown restrictions have been relaxed, a lot of people are continuing to work from home (WFH), some full-time others part-time.  This does however, mean there is a demand or a need for a home office space to make the situation work for the whole family.

Why You Might Need A Home-Office Conversion

Remote working at home has undoubtedly brought benefits to many workers and families.

For example:-

• Commuting time is vastly reduced or even eliminated. That has a knock-on effect on pollution and the environment.
• Workers have fewer disruptions like the colleague who always wants to talk about their weekend. Those interruptions are eliminated giving people more productive time.
• People can spend time with their family or go to their children’s after-school activities and catch-up on work in the evening.
• People can work at a time that suits their metabolism or personality. For “larks” or “owls” rather than 9-to-5ers, this is a big bonus.

Clearly, there are some big attractions to working from home.

Problems Of Working From Home

Despite all the obvious and not-so-obvious benefits from remote working, there are also numerous problems associated with it. While the office gossip has been removed, the family, especially during school holidays, is available much more. Your spouse may want a job doing or the children may want you to join them on a project. Space may be a problem in a regular home. Not all houses have a study or office as part of the construction or design. Work will often entail additional piles of paper or files which can be both unsightly in the lounge or take up space on the dining table. There can be visitors like your spouse’s friends or children’s after school. Not surprisingly, there are multiple problems for people and their families when someone decides to become a remote worker.

A Simple Home-Working Solution

Given the potential for disruptions when working at home, having a dedicated home-office becomes the obvious answer. But, where and how?  An office will need space to be freed-up from the family home, and on the surface, few homes have lots of spare space to use – and aren’t home-office conversions expensive? Below are a few thoughts and answers as to why you might want to hire a builder to convert a room into a home-office.

We Don’t Have Any Spare Space

Even if your home looks full, it is surprising how much space can be created or rather, reimagined, with a good spatial design and smart building. There is often a lot of wasted space with unnecessary walls, poor use of cupboards and hallways. A good designer or an experienced house builder and renovations expert, can spot opportunities to create a better use of space in your home. Drawing on their experience, they can see dead spaces or unused areas that can be converted into more usable space like a home-office.

Office Conversions Can Be Affordable

An office conversion doesn’t have to be an expensive project. In fact, you may be pleasantly surprised when you realise just how affordable a conversion project like this can be. The total costs will vary based on the scale of the project, but upgrades like this can be made even if you are on a limited budget. Talk to an experienced renovations builder about the room you’d like to convert into an office. They can give you a ball-park estimate of the likely costs for a home-office conversion. You may find that a project like this is within your budget.

It Can Increase the Value of Your Home

While home renovations will almost always increase your home’s total value, this is a particularly smart upgrade. With the rise in popularity of remote working, house buyers are more likely to be looking for homes with an office already included. An upgrade like this should provide a solid return on investment.

Even if you are not planning on selling your property in the near future, a home office is a smart financial decision. As mentioned above, these kinds of conversions can be very cost-effective, which means there’s a strong chance you’ll be able to recoup a lot of what you spend.

Having An In-Home Office Space Can Improve Your Quality Of Life

We have seen the potential for domestic stress ranging from interruptions from children to piles of papers filling up the dining table. Having a home-office conversion can prevent all of these and more. By creating a specific place for home working, documents can be kept away from small sticky fingers on client papers and DIY requests can be kept until the weekend. A converted home-office space is also a place that you can leave at 5pm so you are not working all hours of the day. It is your place of work you can open and close the door on.

All of these options will mean your domestic life and the quality of your life will be improved by having that special space for your work.

Your Home-Office Space Can Be Shared

A dedicated home-office needn’t be the sole domain of one person in the household. An experienced renovation builder can create an office that’s designed to have multiple uses. For example, if more than one member of your household works from home, you may need to create space for two people. Children can use the room for their homework and in the evenings, it can be a hobby room. A good designer or builder will be able to incorporate all of these needs so you and your family get maximum use and return from your home office space.

For Even More Space You Can Add An Extension

Some people will look at the idea of a home-office conversion and think, why not add outwards by building a home extension. If you are going to have some disruption with a conversion, then take advantage of that and having a building company on site and make your home substantially bigger.

There are plenty of advantages of this approach, not just in making an office for working from home, but that room can be designed from scratch rather than fitting it into an existing space. You can also include other rooms like entertainment, a granny flat or a room for your teenagers. A house extension can fulfil many needs, not just your work-from-home office.

A Builder Can Make Life Better

Working out of home shouldn’t be a frustrating experience. The right renovation builder can transform a room or unused space into a good place to work and help improve home life for everyone. If you have been working from home because of Covid-19 or simply thinking of a home-office conversion, we’d love to hear from you – give us a call on 0800 224 628 or email us at enquiries@cainbuilt.co.nz.