Many office workers are afforded the luxury of working from home and flexible working hours. The option to work from home – if utilised to its full potential – can be a very pro-active and efficient way of working. There are fewer distractions in your home office, a higher chance of achieving the workload required without interruption and the ability to prioritise workloads more easily. But without a suitable office location in your home, the working from home luxury can present some problems.

Home Office
Home Office

If the combination of flexible working hours and working from home days equates to at least two days a week or more, it is well worth the consideration to allocate an entire room of your house into your home office. Workers with young families and small children can often find it difficult to find a suitable location in the house that is quieter than their actual workplace. Spare bedrooms are often filled with children’s toys and long forgotten DVDs, the lounge or dining room areas are usually invaded by music from kids TV or crying and shouting children. In this scenario, a loft conversion for your home office sounds like a pretty good idea.

Tips for a loft conversion for your home office:

– Don’t rush your decision. You don’t want to invest heavily in a loft conversion that won’t be fully utilised. Only take the plunge on your loft conversion if you know that you’ll make full use of the additional quiet office space.

– Establish a budget. By obtaining an up-front quote from a building contractor you know that your loft conversion can be afforded and mitigate the risk of overspend.

– Check that your loft conversion won’t adversely affect your property. Some hastily converted lofts can actually reduce the value of your property if they aren’t to a sufficient standard. Ensure that your loft conversion is professionally scoped by a reputable architect, that access to the loft is designed just as carefully as the loft conversion itself (perhaps via a staircase originating from one of the other first floor rooms).

– If you’re considering implementing solar panels on your roof, ensure that a loft conversion won’t affect your plans. Solar panels need structural stability, and a loft conversion can often lead to the installation of a skylight which will prevent solar panels being installed in some cases.

– Consider heating. Whilst your permanent heating is being installed and extended into new radiators in your loft space, you may wish to enquire about heater hire. Temporary heating is a new and readily obtainable service which can improve the comfort levels in the working environment throughout the building works of your loft conversion until the permanent heating solution is installed.