A comfortable home office is a must now that so many of us are spending a large percentage of time working from home.
According to a survey mentioned by Healthline, over 1,600 employees said “access to natural light and views of the outdoors” was their largest desire for a workplace environment.
Furthermore, natural light can bring many health benefits – including boosting vitamin D intake, warding off seasonal depression and improving sleep. So, you’ve got an interest in increasing the amount of sunlight your home office gets. How could you do it? Here are some suggestions…
Choose your office furniture carefully
There are probably quite a few pieces of office furniture you need – not just the obvious like a desk and chair, but also possibly a storage cabinet for keeping essential paperwork and a coffee table on which to place a drink during your lunch break. However, is a lot of sunlight being blocked as a result?
You could look into swapping out bulky furniture for sleeker alternatives – and, if you can’t replace the coffee table, look into giving it table legs that would let more light flow freely through the room.
Lighten up… your home office
You can do that through various means, such as applying white paint of a soft shade to walls previously adorned with statement wallpaper. Giving your home office shades of white will discernibly brighten up the space, as natural light entering the room will bounce around it rather than be absorbed by it.
Nonetheless, House Beautiful warns against using brilliant white paint on walls – as the space could be left feeling somewhat colder than it would with an off-white shade instead.
Arrange your office to make the best of natural light
It’s not just the furniture itself but also where you place it that can make a surprisingly big difference to how naturally well-lit your home office is.
The Spruce cites the general rule of thumb that you “have natural light in front of or next to work surfaces and computer screens to avoid glare”. By positioning your workstation so that it faces north or south, you can prevent the sunlight from throwing an awkward shadow at any point in the day.
Install the right type of flooring
What type of flooring does your home office currently have? Given that you have probably fashioned this office out of a spare room, that flooring probably wasn’t exactly laid with remote working in mind.
So, that flooring probably isn’t wooden, ceramic or stone flooring with a polished finish – as, compared to a carpet, this would all help to reflect light much more effectively. If you would still prefer a carpet, though, then make sure it’s light and neutral in colour.
Trim any troublesome greenery from around your office window
If you’ve barely touched the foliage creeping up your window recently, you’re probably losing a lot of natural light as a result of that greenery largely blocking its entry into your home office.
So, don’t neglect to trim any trees, bushes or climbing plants that are getting in the way. After all, the pandemic has left many of us with plenty of time for gardening!