For regular work at home, organising and filing, or the odd creative writing session – every home needs a workspace. We show you how to combine your home office harmoniously with your guest room, bedroom or living room and create multifunctional spaces.
Combining a home office with other rooms – how to make it work in any room:
- Combining a home office and guest room
- Adding a desk to your bedroom
- Setting up a work corner in the living room
1. Combining a home office and guest room: how to use the room for several purposes
In a guest room, visitors should feel especially comfortable and welcome. But whenever there are no guests, the room can also make an ideal study. To successfully combine an inviting retreat with an organised workspace, the room layout and choice of colours are key.
In a guest room, it's important that the work and guest areas are balanced, with roughly equal space for both. The integrated work corner should offer plenty of storage space so that personal items and work materials can be locked away – this brings calm to the room and ensures your guests get a restful night's sleep. With its Kabino series, Normann Copenhagen has created an answer to the demands of guest rooms and home offices. It offers plenty of storage space and smart cable outlets for all your devices. You decide what suits you best: choose from different sizes with doors or drawers.
Also choose light natural tones, as every guest will like them and they have a positive effect on your concentration. In a combined study and guest room, comfortable sofa beds, such as those from Karup, make a good place to sleep and can be pulled out when needed.
"To combine a study and guest room, take your cue from modern hotel rooms. Here, the focus is on all-round comfort. So make sure the comfortable chair doesn't look too much like an office chair and can also be a place to unwind." – Kerstin, interior expert
2. Adding a desk to your bedroom: how to create a work corner in the bedroom
If you only need a workspace at home now and then, for example to sort paperwork or do small writing tasks, a desk in the bedroom is a good option. But it's important that the sleeping area always dominates – that's the only way you'll get the rest you need at night for work during the day.
Create an understated work corner in your bedroom by choosing a narrow or folding desk and fitting plenty of storage above it in the form of closed shelving. With the right accessories, such as jewellery boxes and table mirrors, the desk in your bedroom can also easily double as a dressing table.
A decorative cabinet or a sideboard is also a good idea in the bedroom, creating space for all your work materials so that you can shut them out of sight when it's time for bed. Pair it with an upholstered chair – it's not only comfortable but also adds a cosy feel to the bedroom.
If your bedroom is big enough, you can use a room divider to visually separate the work and sleeping areas. Curtains are a wonderful way to divide a large bedroom into two spaces, so you can combine a bedroom and study. A curtain is a lovely, soft element that adds cosiness and screens off the desk.
3. Setting up a work corner in the living room: how to make the workspace feel homely
Adding a desk to the living room is probably the biggest challenge, because this is where we spend most of our time, invite guests and want to switch off. But with a few tips and tricks, you can set up a work corner in the living room that blends harmoniously into the overall look.
Tall, closed sideboards that have room for a printer, work materials and a laptop are particularly suitable. Folded down, individual cabinet doors become a desk in your living room in no time.
Slender shelving and table systems that work well together are also a real eye-catcher in the living room. Floating wall shelves bring a little more lightness to the living room, so visitors won't immediately notice them as a work corner.
Thanks to a toolbox and portable rechargeable table lamps, you can also work flexibly in the living room with your laptop – comfortably on the sofa for shorter tasks, or spread out at the dining table for longer periods of focused work.
Whichever room you choose, we hope you enjoy setting up your work corner.
