My office right now is a desk in the dining room/ living room. But it's also my laptop that goes with me all over the house and outside with my little boys.

We are currently building a new house with the thoughts of making one of the rooms an office. But I don't think I want to be closed up in an "office," sounds too much like a cubicle. So I've designated a space in my bright sunny kitchen/dining area for my small desk with cabinets above for storage. We'll probably still have the office but I don't "have" be in there.

As for files and storage. . . right now I use binders for my clients with tabs for separate projects. For small projects I just use file folders.

Deirdre

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Deirdre's Virtual Office

Thanks for sharing. I feel so much better. Moving next week from NY to FL (just sold my home) and won't have the space I have now.

Originally Posted by Tess

Kylie, I love that post about and pic of your office (and how funny that you refer to your husband/biz partner as Code Monkey As you know, mine is Codehead!)

My husband would be highly offended if I called him one of those names - he's worked with computers since the 60s

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Julia

My office is in our family room - the room is huge about 20 x 10. We've always called it the "Blue Room" b/c when we moved in it was a great shade of blue unlike the rest of the house that had really tacky wallpaper. It has a door out to the backyard so that I can let His Lordship, aka The Director of Security, our poodle, Jet in and out. He often spends most of his days in the office with me unless the office and house is threatened by a squirrel and then he has to spring into action and tell it off.

My latest acquisition in my office which I love is an old Underwood typewriter. It has to be at least 60 years old. My father-in-law got it in the early 60s from the school he was teaching in when they retired it, so it had to be at least 20 years old then. It's a great ornament in the office.

The only drawback to having a room this large is that it's so easy to mess up. In a smaller office you have to be a lot more tidy but I'm getting better at keeping it neat. It's also on the first level of the house (we have a side split) with the entrance and powder room so it's self contained if someone has to come here.

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Julia

I just started decorating and organizing a space in our basement that we finished off last year. It houses my craft room and our office, although I haven't used it as a work space yet. We're always on the laptop upstairs. Hopefully by the time I'm finished we'll feel cozy enough to work down there. I've been using storage furniture and accessories from IKEA. If any of you haven't been there, I highly recommend going.

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Sarah Bernstein
Jackson Administrative Outsourcing
www.jacksonao.com

Right now, my "office" is my laptop and just wherever I find a comfortable place to work. Lol! And a file cabinet to keep papers in. This completely paperless thing intriques me. Someone please tell me more. Exactly how do you manage things that would normally be printed out, such as signed contracts, copies of invoices, etc.

Kylie, I loved your blog about your office. Especially the part about talking on the phone in the closet. I found myself today talking on the phone in the master bathroom! Lol! It was the quietest room in the house.

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~ Tami
Kelley Virtual Solutions

Whew! I am so glad to know that I'm not the only one that has my office in the middle of my dining room/living room. I thought I was probably the only one that didn't go into a professional home/office to get my work done -LOL. And like others have said here, I work wherever my kiddos are most of the time...but there are times I do hide in the closet, bathroom or kitchen pantry to carry on a professional conversation. Thanks for sharing everyone -

Kena Roth

My office is a spare room for now. I just got married so we are still purging his crap *he keeps everything* and the spare room also ended up being the storage room for the all of the wall art, pictures, etc. that we can't quite put up yet because we have to wait a year to paint, blah blah blah.

But I'm starting to feel like the lack of organization in my "office" is stunting my desire to be in there and actually work like I should. There is a desk, printer, fax, etc. but this was also the space I used when finishing up my MBA, so it doesn't have a great "feel" right now.

I've called a few carpenters because I want a customized bookshelf with more counter space. The angles in the room are daughting so a customized unit will likely be the best solution. I need color on the walls and other points of information. So right now -- its a blank slate.

In response to the whole paperless thing, I wanted to give some feedback on that. In my day job, I have actually developed a couple of REALLY big filing systems that are exclusively electronic. The way I was able to make this happen is that we have a Sharp copier w/ scanning capability - so I run it thru just like a copy, and it sends to me as a PDF.

So I'm not TRULY paperless.....I have things that start out on paper but for long term storage, I've got it electronically.

Since I'm sure you probably don't have a scanner/copier, you can buy regular scanners with the document feeder that aren't all that costly (if you think it's really something you'd like to invest in).

My VA doors are not yet open, but here is how I could see it working for client related stuff.
- You have your contract, which you will print as needed
- Send to your client for signature
- They send it back to you
- You scan it into a PDF
- On your computer you have a master folder called "Clients" and below that subfolders for each individual client, then below that, you can have the signed contract
- Whenever you need to retrieve it, it's literally at your fingertips - you don't need to thumb thru a file or binder

A BIG caveat to this - all my files at work are on a network drive which is backed up throughout the day. In a home office environment, you would definitely want to invest in some sort of backup system (I'm not sure how much that costs now!). Legally, I think this would be a requirement as well (not to mention just good business sense!).

Please feel free to PM me for examples of how I've used this in my day job. It's something that takes some work on the front end, but is WORTH it when it's all done. And it's just exciting for me because it's made my work more efficient!

As far as back up, depending on how large and how many files you have, those flash drives hold a LOT now and are relatively inexpensive. I file my documents the same way at my day job and will be doing the same for my VA business. I much prefer to have them all stored electronically.

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Sarah Bernstein
Jackson Administrative Outsourcing
www.jacksonao.com