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Home offices are booming

Home offices have been the big thing in home renos during the pandemic. Local renovators have been inundated with jobs ranging from structural changes, to new furniture and technology, all the way to decor.
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Lots of natural light? Check. A good chair and desk? Check. Making it cool with lots of glass? Triple check. Home offices can be fun, thanks to Alair Homes and its reno services. CHERYL SILSBE PHOTOGRAPHY/Supplied

The current pandemic has had some interesting side effects on employment, leaving many without work, and many of those still working at desks in their homes.

According to two recent Statistics Canada studies, about 40 per cent of employees worked primarily from home by April 2020, a figure much different than four per cent in 2016. In January 2022, a Labour Force Survey discovered that 24.3 per cent of respondents reported that they worked exclusively at home, an increase from 7.5 per cent in 2016.

With these increases comes the obvious spike in how much people care about their home offices.

“Obviously, we had some home offices before the pandemic, then the pandemic shifted pretty much to many people working from home. Interesting now that we're coming out of it, you're seeing a lot of these businesses are looking at adopting a hybrid model. Even coming out of the pandemic, people will still be probably working from home,” said Kara Murray of the St. Albert office of Alair Homes, a franchised new home builder and home renovations company.

The home office is not just a laptop at the kitchen table anymore. If you’re spending your 40 hours per week crunching numbers and producing reports, you want to make your surroundings as enjoyable and pleasant as possible, she continued.

Alair focuses on larger renos, and as such they’ve seen bedrooms redone to bring more of the sun in and walls changed to let it shine even through the rest of the house, too.

“They're deliberately building these offices so they have lots of windows. That's the thing you're going to find. Or people are renovating these bedrooms to not just have these high windows, but really get a lot more of that natural light in,” she continued, adding that with home offices sometimes also comes home schooling.

“There's some that are more open concept or the ones that need a little bit more soundproofing, a little bit more quiet. They are closed off but there [tends] to be more glass so you still have that quietness and a bit of that privacy, but you can still see what's going on in the house. We’re seeing a lot of those, where they have the office but it's just more enclosed glass, which I think works again if you have kids at home or you're trying to keep an eye on whatever's going on, and again more natural light. If you're working full time, it’s [better] than being stuck in a little bedroom at the back of the house.”

Alana Gannon Schilf of home interior expert Inspired Homes added that she has also seen an increase in people being interested in how those rooms will look. Home-workers have had to put an eye to not only how their offices look for themselves, but also how they come across on all of those teleconferences.

“Someone might have their desk area and then they would put something interesting behind it like a bookshelf or a credenza. If there's going to be an open storage unit behind them then it's going to be organized and stylized. The cool storage unit may be to hide some of the things that come with everyday work life,” she offered.

She has also seen a lot more people interested in procuring and placing artwork in their home offices. Done well, it can add a lot to the atmosphere and the professional appearance of your own workspace, she said.


Scott Hayes, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

About the Author: Scott Hayes, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Ecology and Environment Reporter at the Fitzhugh Newspaper since July 2022 under Local Journalism Initiative funding provided by News Media Canada.
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