Four Benefits of a Basement Home Office
Between the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and increasing flexibility on the part of employers, more and more people are choosing to work from the comforts of a home office. It can be hard to find a quiet place to work, however, especially if you have children or a partner or spouse who also works from home. For this reason, the best home office is a basement home office.
Whether you’re working from home part or full-time, a basement home office is an ideal solution for your needs. Basement home offices have become popular among homeowners due to the many benefits they provide. We’ve put together a list of four advantages to building a home office in your finished basement.
1. Keep Distractions to a Minimum
If you’ve ever tried to work from home, you know the struggles of keeping your home office quiet and private. It can be difficult, if not impossible, to hear your coworkers or clients during a meeting over the sound of your spouse making breakfast, your kids watching cartoons after school, or the clatter of a washing machine or dishwasher running in the room next door. If you have a career working with sensitive information, you also want a private space where you won’t be interrupted and can lock the door to protect documents.
By placing your home office in your basement, you can minimize distractions and keep focused on your work. Physical separation can make a big difference in your work-life balance. You’ll have the benefit of the added distance between you and distractions. Plus, moving downstairs in the morning might feel simple, but the physical act of a commute – even one that short – can help get you in the mindset to work.
2. Don’t Compromise on Space
Dedicating a part of your finished basement to being a home office can have other benefits as well. For one, it means you don’t have to repurpose an existing room or squeeze it into another space. You might have a spare bedroom while one of your children is away at college, but what do you do when they come home? And squeezing your desk into the corner of the living room might seem like a good idea in theory, but it can be difficult to stay focused and keep your papers organized.
Finishing your basement and adding a home office is the best way to maximize your space. In the first days of the pandemic, when people thought it might last for two weeks, a temporary workspace in the dining room might have seemed like enough, but, if you’re still working from home now, you’re no doubt feeling the pinch. Give yourself the space you need without taking it away from the other important functions of your home.
3. Add Additional Storage
One element of working from home that most people forget about is storage. In your office at work, you might have several filing cabinets, plenty of drawers in your desk, and even dedicated rooms for servers and other electronic devices that contain important data. However, most people lack expansive storage space in their homes, especially good places to store sensitive documents or hardware. For this reason, a basement home office is ideal.
A basement home office will give you the benefit of a room set aside for storage, of course, but it does more than that. Having a home office on the ground floor of your home can be stressful, especially when storage is concerned. Visitors to your home might try to get in, thinking it’s a bathroom, or kids and pets might wander in to play, as it’s easier to access. Setting aside a dedicated space in your finished basement will not just give you more room to store things, without taking away existing storage space, but it will also make sure whatever you need to store is less likely to be disturbed.
4. Increase Your Home’s Value
While a basement home office might be all you want out of your finished basement, there is great value in adding other rooms as well. A finished basement offers a great opportunity to add other needed spaces to your home. For example, if you’re adding a home office to your basement, you might also want to add a small bathroom or even a kitchenette to cut down on trips up and down the stairs. You could even add a fitness studio or wet bar, though those spaces might not help with the distractions of working from home!
Regardless of what else you want to add to your finished basement, simply having a finished basement can add significant value to your home. In today’s market, where more and more people are able to work from home, having a basement home office can be a major factor in selling your home, should you decide to move.
No matter what your reasons for creating a basement home office are, it can have significant benefits for your work-life balance. We hope that you’ll consider our skilled team at Timberstone Remodeling for all of your basement finishing and home remodeling needs.
