Product Description

More than 50 million Americans work at home and the work they do is as varied as the houses they live in. This fresh take on home work spaces looks at a wide range of designs that suit some unique employment needs -- from a day-care center to a dance studio. With practical information and an emphasis on rooms that serve a variety of purposes, this book offers readers real ways to create at-home environments that work. Featured are design ideas interspersed with practical information including 300 color photographs, and a wider variety of work spaces than any other book.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #154722 in Books
• Published on: 2001-10-15
• Released on: 2001-10-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 300 pages

From Library Journal
Zimmerman (Home Office Design, LJ 9/15/96), who has 25 years of experience as a corporate workplace designer and architect, explains how to create an office at home. He begins by analyzing individual needs and plans and then discusses various location and space options, such as sharing a room, rooms completely dedicated to work, adding to a home office, and separate buildings either converted or newly constructed. He provides many real-life examples illustrated with photographs, including some with floor plans. This book is a nice complement to Zimmerman's previous work as well as to Lorrie Mack's Calm Working Spaces (LJ 1/01). Purchase if more is needed on home offices.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Great for Architects
As the reviewer said, this is an architect's dream book, since most of the offices belong to architects. The photos are quite lovely, but this is not quite the right book for some help on what to do with your existing space without hiring an architect to overhaul it all. Rather short on practical points, which I assume are covered much better in the other books available. nothing on furniture, desks, chairs, etc., or cabinets to store your stuff.

Working at home and loving it!
Like Powers's _Living with Books_ and Ellis's _At Home with Books,_ which I've reviewed in the past, this is the sort of lushly illustrated volume anyone with similar interests will sit and drool over. If you work at home, or if you need a second space at home for the overspill from your office job, you have a number of options: Claim a corner of an existing space in your house or apartment (living room, kitchen, even a niche off a hallway), convert a spare bedroom or even a walk-in closet, move into the attic or the basement (if you live in the part of the country that HAS attics and basements), make a separate dedicated space out of a garage or other outbuilding, or even construct a new space on your property, either attached to your house or semi-isolated in a handy patch of woods. (My own home office, like many others, used to be a kid's bedroom, and I haven't done much to it; it still has the Winnie-the-Pooh ceiling fixture.) The author walks you through all these possibilities and has you think about zoning and property-line setbacks, and floor and ceiling materials, and light sources and plumbing, and active storage and bookshelving. He also points out the need to control your workspace, to separate work from home life, and to identify "swing spaces." How much space do you really need? Maybe not as much as you think. Consider as a guide the acronym "CAMP," which stands for Computer station, Administrative station, Meeting station, and Project station. The need may be minimal (I never have clients in my home) and some of the others may be combined (I do admin work at the same work table where I do projects), but looking at it this way will lead you to reconsider your own SoHo. The pictures in this book, naturally, will make you jealous of those with the design talent and the money to establish such luscious work areas. The nicest and most unusual, not surprisingly, belong to architects working at home. Nevertheless, even with my own relatively simple needs, I picked up a number of ideas on how to optimize my own space.

DOES YOUR HOME OFFICE LOOK LIKE A DISASTER AREA?
If your home office looks like it does not belong there, or it appears as though you are co-ordinating a world relief project in a disaster area, this book is for you. Included here are some wonderful floor plans (large and small areas) and beautiful photographs that will give you ideas on how to incorporate an efficient and attractive office space into your home. No, you do not have to move to the garage and you do not have to "live among the ruins" any longer.

Whether you are renovating an existing room, planning to add on an extra room, or building a completely separate facility, there is something here for everyone. If you find yourself with more files on the floor than in the filing cabinet, an inefficient computer station (there is nothing like getting tied up in the phone cord, while trying to find a vacant space on the top of your desk to maneuver that little mouse around,)it is time to make some chaanges and this book is for you. One is only limited by the size of their budget. Great ideas, great book!