Many entrepreneurs and business owners have a home office and do a significant amount of work in that space.
Some are fortunate to have a room that is designated or designed to serve that single purpose. More often, the home office is ‘dual-purposed’ to meet other needs of the household.
The most common situation I hear about is the home office that is squeezed into the guest bedroom. Or worse in some cases, the home office is sacrificed altogether so the family has a room for the occasional visitor. Sound familiar?
As someone who loves to entertain, I personally love the idea and understand the want of a dedicated room for my guests. For many years, I had exactly that.
However, as my life and career evolved, I understood that I had to evolve with it and I determined that I needed an office more than I needed a bed taking space – after all, it was only used 3-4 nights a year at most.
I decided that my hard work did not deserve less honor simply because I don’t travel to an office space.
Now I often challenge clients that find themselves in this same predicament with the question: “do you work hard?”
And when they inevitably answer in the affirmative, I follow with “is your work important?”
In fact, in my experience solopreneurs work especially hard and have an amazing capacity for creativity.
The very next challenge I present to them is to answer honestly how many nights a year the guest room is actually used for visitors.
Most often the answer is somewhere along the lines of “I could count the nights on one hand!”.
I begin to see the light bulbs turn on.
They realize they are delegating a space that is used 1% of the year to the comfort of guests, when more than 60% of the year.
They realize the space is actually used to work!
They stare down the barrel of resentment when they begin thinking about the creativity and productivity they have sacrificed to the queen (or king) sized bed in the room that rarely sees a person that doesn’t live in the house.
When I realized this myself, I sold my bed and bought a sweet little (pink!) sofa for my office that I sit on almost every day at some point. It easily converts to a bed for my occasional guest.
The best part, I get far more use out of it than I ever would out of a guest bed.
Create a comfortable seating area with a sofa, like mine, that can be used as alternative seating for the day to day activities performed in the running of a business can be perfect solution for your home office/guest room too.
Before you roll your eyes with memories of the paper thin mattress with the crossbar digging into the small of your back from the ‘pull-out’ couches from your youth, take a look at this New York Magazine article that gathers a list of almost twenty sofas, chairs and sectionals in all price ranges that pull double duty as an impromptu bed for your guests.
BONUS – this curated list from interior designers includes a variety of styles and tastes for the modern home office entrepreneur.
This is the best of both worlds and makes me smile every time I walk into my office – does your office do that for you?
For more ideas on improving your home office, contact us for your consultation.
(970) 218-2209
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