Furniture and Equipment – Tools You’ll Need
July 8, 2008 |
For most freelance work, your office furnishings can be minimal. The advantage of working from home is that you can start small and then pick up furniture here and there as you need it.
Yard sales, estate liquidators, and used furniture stores are good sources for outfitting your office. There are also used office furniture dealers to investigate, but often the size and quality of the equipment they sell is overkill for the home office, plus you’ll usually pay more.
Beyond just acquiring furniture, equipment, and tools, some thought should be given to how those items will make you productive. If you purchase equipment, and end up with backache, headache, eye strain, or other irritations during the day, you’ll create more problems for yourself.
Working from home veterans and interior design experts point to four factors that you need consider in order to make your home office optimal:
- Convenience - your office setup needs to save you time and simplify your workflow whenever possible.
- Comfort - your office needs to satisfy both your physical and emotional needs and not cause you pain or strain while carrying out your work.
- Function - the equipment you operate and supplies you use often should be within arms length and easy to access.
- Privacy - your office environment should be reasonably free from distractions and secure from intrusion or disturbances.
So for each furnishing you need, let’s take these four factors into consideration.
Desk
Desktop surfaces need to be 30 inches high for writing tasks, but only 26 inches for keyboarding or computing. Look for those that have multiple surfaces or adjustments you can make. Some jobs, like drafting, need tilted surfaces, so desks and tables that can adapt to your preferences are good too. The width and depth of your desk will also be factors, and will largely be determined by the space you have to accommodate it.
Pay attention to the storage space afforded by the desk and how convenient it is to access. Before purchasing any desk, sit down at it and try to visualize where you would put the things you need to access often, whether it be supplies, files, or equipment. If it doesn’t meet the majority of your needs, continue to look until you find one that does. It will likely be the center of everything you do, so it needs to function as more than just a piece of furniture.
Desk Chair
Here’s where you might want to splurge in your budget a bit. Because your rear end will parked in your desk chair for the majority of time you will be working on a given day, it’s very important to have one that supports you properly and can adjust to fit your anatomy perfectly. Many health complaints of office workers stem from not having the proper ergonomically designed chair to sit in.
Experts say that a properly designed desk chair should support the base of your spine and help it hold a slight forward, or concave, curve. The chair should extend high enough to support the back of your head and allow you to relax against it. The chair should support your weight evenly and minimize the pressure on your thighs. The seat should be rounded as to not restrict blood flow to your legs and should be adjustable so that you can have both feet planted firmly on the floor, while maintaining your thighs parallel to it.
The chair should have arm rests that permit adjustment to allow a comfortable angle for your wrists when writing or typing and can be lowered so you can shove the chair under the desk. It goes without saying that the chair must have rollers to enable you to glide to different parts of your desk area as necessary. For safety, a five leg chair is preferable to one that has four.
Filing Cabinet(s)
Here’s where you can generally get a good deal on a used unit. Try to get something substantial from a recognized brand and not too flimsy, because the latter tend to jam. They come in letter sized or legal sized widths and can be either vertical or lateral shape. Take into account your own height in buying because you don’t really want to have to stand on a stool to reach the top drawers. Also plan out your office space so the cabinets will not be too far out of the way to affect your workflow. You may also want to consider getting ones that lock if you typically keep sensitive material in your files.
Computer - Desktop or Laptop?
At one time, laptop or notebook computers were twice the price of desktop models. These days, you only have to pay a slight price premium to enjoy a computer that is very convenient and has comparable processing capabilities to most desktop units. Technology has become the great enabler.
Some people have trouble using the smaller keyboard on a laptop and complain about the tiny screen. Both of those issues can be addressed by purchasing a desktop docking station, where you can easily connect your laptop to a full sized keyboard, a standard mouse, and a monitor that’s as large as you’d like it to be. You then have the ergonomics of a standard computer that then becomes a mobile computer when you disconnect the laptop and go - the best of both worlds.
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Computer Monitor - CRT or LCD Display?
The flat screen LCD displays have come way down in price and are no longer a luxury to have. They conserve space and energy and certainly weigh a whole lot less.
CRT monitors will always be cheaper and do provide a finer resolution if that’s an important consideration for your business (CAD drawings, graphic design, etc).
Printers or Multifunction Machines
The laser printer is the mainstay in most businesses. There are small footprint machines that can be used as personal printers for individual computer workstations and high capacity machines that stand several feet high that can be networked to serve a large office.
Multifunction or “All in One” machines have become very popular in freelance businesses because they combine printing, copying, scanning, and faxing into a compact space saving unit and are now very affordable. Though most are inkjet based, there are some laser versions. You also have the option of color for each function on the inkjet machines.
High Speed Internet
All businesses need a high speed or broadband connection to the Internet. This is usually accomplished by way of subscription to a cable or DSL service through an Internet Service Provider (ISP). The days of dial-up Internet through a phone line are over. You will also need a device called a modem to connect to the service.
You will have a choice whether to go wired or wireless. Wireless, also known as Wi-Fi, is a lot more convenient, but there are issues concerning interference, connection speed, and security that you should research before making a decision.
Internet access can also be achieved these days through a cell phone, where you can synch with your computer back at the office for accessing files, contact lists, and calendars.