The perfect home office
AT HOME
KEVIN MCCLINTOCK GateHouse Plus

Home-based businesses

have increased by more than 10 percent in the last 15 years, which is a good reason why having an office insidethe home is paramount these days.

An office can either be anew addition built onto an existing house, or a spare bedroom converted into a base of operation. According to the National Association of Home Builders in Washington D.C., NAHB research concludes the home office is currently the most requested specialty room in new house construction.

Gopal Ahluwalia, NAHB's director of research, said the average size of a new home here in the new century is 2,225 square feet, compared with 1,500 square feet for homes built in 1971.

The key to a good home office is to make use of whatever space is available, whether it's a stair landing, a small closet, spare room or an unused corner of the living room.

For greatest efficiency, find a space that can be dedicated to a home office area. More work will be accomplished if you don't have to turn the desk into a temporary diaper-changing area.

It might be tempting to just move the pieces around until the space works. But if you spend some time actually measuring your space, creating a floor plan (small as it might be), measuring your furniture, and thinking it through, the final result will be much more satisfactory.