These 5 tips on buying home office furniture are intended to help the increasing number of people who are working from home. They are doing so for a number reasons, such as the increasing trend to reduce outsourcing of call centers, and reduce costs by bringing it back to the USA by paying people to work from home.
Another is the increasing trend for businesses to allow personnel to work from home when the office environment is unnecessary, and also, of course, the explosion of online home businesses. Whether all of these businesses will endure is immaterial - they all need hone office furniture.
1. Plan Out Your Office
Before you start buying home office furniture you must first plan out your office. Determine what equipment you have, and what you may need to have in the future. For example, most people use laptops so the bulky furniture needed to house regular computer cabinets is no longer necessary.
Printers now come equipped with a scanner and photocopier, again cutting down on the number of individual pieces of equipment to accommodate. You must determine your genuine needs before making assumptions on the home office furniture you must purchase.
That is just one of your problems: the other is to keep your home office looking neat and professional - if you have visitors they don't want to see a rubbish tip, no matter how functional it is! What you need is to have all your options openly available to you, so your choice is made easier. You don't want to trudge round all the office furniture stores in your area trying to compare their products - you cannot do it effectively.
2. Buy Home Office Furniture Online
Buying home furniture should be carried out online where you have a number of suppliers that you can easily compare. You can compare their products in terms of functionality, effectiveness, the space they take up and price, and then choose according to your most important criteria.
You can make a considered decision on such choices as whether to select individual pieces of equipment or whether to opt for the more economical bundled packs or collections. You will find a much wider selection of these online than in any individual store.
Some offer the argument in favor of offline regular stores that it is better to try the furniture out first before you decide to buy. Do the drawers stick, or are the pieces stable. Do they honestly believe you are purchasing the actual demo piece? That's what guarantees are for: by law, suppliers must replace or refund on any item that is not functional as it should be, and that includes unstable tables and chairs, and drawers that stick.
There are no doubts that online stores offer you a much wider choice of office furniture than any regular store can. You are given the dimensions online and can right away get out your measure and see how it fits in your home office. This is particularly the case if you have a new home office, and have to purchase all your home office furniture at once.
3. Choose Everything Before Purchasing Anything
You will have a budget you are prepared to spend, so do not purchase a single item until you have chosen everything you need. Then check the total price: if above your budget you can now go back and reduce the spec on some items. If below budget, you can maybe get a higher spec chair to give you more comfort.
If you purchase your home office furniture one piece at a time, you are either going to short-sell yourself on quality, or end up have to forgo on one of your items because you have no money left.
4. Use Your Three-Dimension Space
When designing your office, make the best use of all the space available - including floor space, wall space and ceiling space. Many forget they can hang monitors from the ceiling to free up some desk space, and they can use shelving for modern printers and internet routers. Make a list of all the equipment you have to house, how much paper you intend storing, and how much can be stored electronically.
Some very efficient home offices can run with a laptop, perhaps a spare monitor for Skype video calls, a combined printer/copier/scanner and a telephone. You can send and receive faxes on your computer. That is three items of equipment, plus a router and perhaps a speaker set.
5. Don't Forget the Water Cooler
For all that you need one desk for your laptop and telephone, one shelf to hold the printer and router and another for your paper box files. That's it - plus a chair of course. No doubt you have a longer list but by combining economy of equipment with as close to a paperless office as you can manage, buying home office furniture should be easy and inexpensive. If you do it online you might add an entertainment system and water cooler with the money you save!
