I renovated my Home Office

Disclaimer: you will find Amazon affiliate link in this post. If you buy from it, you will offer me a beer, more or less, with no additional cost to you 👍

I decided to renovate my Home Office.

The 4 traits I focused on:

1. increase comfort 💺
2. improve sound experience 🔊
3. look better during video calls 💅🏻
4. reduce distractions ❗

This was the starting point.

A horizontal desk 160x60cm, an external monitor, keyboard and mouse. In this picture, you can see my old Surface 3 (I sold it) and my books and notebooks while studying for my degree.

The cons

• The chair did not have lumbar support.
• I could not lay my arms on the desk while typing, because the desk was not large enough: the keyboard was too close to the desk border.
• The keyboard was an old (but good) apple Keyboard with a Mighty Mouse.
• 🔊 I had no external speakers nor microphone, so my day was always wearing in-ear headphones (a Sony pair which I really love amzn.to/3pH7TwQ ).
• 💅🏻 I did have a lot of shadows and light coming from the left, making me not look good on the webcam.
• ❗The room was shared with my wife: her desk was on the opposite side of the room. but we had problems when we both attended meetings. Plus, we used that room as a closet so it was a bit messy.

Start renovating

We have a very spacious house (lucky us) so I was able to use part of our basement to create a private Home Office. The room is 3.80 x 2.80 mt and I started sketching a possible furniture disposition.

The most important part I focused on was the desk. I wanted a big corner desk with plenty of room to lay down my arms (45cm from desk border to keyboard) and the right distance to my monitors (60-70cm ready to migrate to a big curved one).

I wanted a library where I can show my Final Fantasy, Kingdom hearts and One Piece collections: manga, video games and action figures so I can turn off any background filter during video calls and anyone can get a glimpse of my passions. 🏯

I wanted to create an atmosphere where the white, wooden and green colors can mix and match to give me a relaxed, bright environment.

So I bought some SPC floor to easily install on top of the existing one: their click mechanism allowed me and my wife to do it on our own.

I looked on different second-hand sites and found my desk, wardrobe and library! There was a lot of fun renting a van with my wife and going to get all of them 🚚

New purchases

First of all, I bought a gaming chair. After countless reviews and going through stores, I found the best for my needs in a GT Player chair: amzn.to/34mU53m

Then, I wanted a portable mechanical keyboard with a numeric pad. I always spied on Keychron and in the end I bought a K4: amzn.to/3sWJVQB

I wanted a new mouse too, an ergonomic wireless one like the Anker I bought: amzn.to/3vL5nK6

I bought a transparent carpet to put under the chair in order to protect the new floor from the chair wheels: amzn.to/3tCu0pC

I already have a desk lamp I use to enlighten my face during video calls, here is the link: amzn.to/3vJx7P7

I bought 3 small plants: aloe vera, Ficus Benjamin and Lucky bamboo. They should help keep the air quality good.

Regarding lightning: for offices, it is advised to have 300-400 Lux per square meter. Simple math 400x11 = 4400 Lumen needed. I bought a lamp holder

https://amzn.to/3Cm01Gn

with 6 LED bulbs 800 Lumen each

amzn.to/3IKPCX4

I chose a warm light as I find it more relaxing.

This is a bit of what the office looks like right now 😁

Still missing

1. a microphone that makes me sound like a rock star 🧑🏻‍🎤🎙️
2. external speakers that make my in-ear headphones not needed at all 🎶
3. a fixed external webcam with higher definition 📸
4. sound absorbing panels
5. a big wide curved monitor (I think 1 big monitor may be superior to the 2 monitors setup)
6. probably, an air conditioner as I think summer may be really hot
7. a beautiful organizer like amzn.to/372JWcV
8. some paintings