Sophisticated study space: Spruce up your home office

Having a beautifully designed home office can help optimise your productivity, offering a calming space in which to complete your tasks. This is beneficial not only for students busy with school or university studies, but also for plenty of working professionals.

These days, many companies are embracing the concept of flexible workspaces, allowing employees to work remotely from home for a few days a month. However, staying focused at home can be tricky, so designing a customised space dedicated to study or working is a handy idea.

These decorating ideas can help spruce up your study space into a sophisticated and stylish room. 

Choose calming colours 

According to a 2012 survey by Southern Cross Health Society, 30 per cent of New Zealanders feel stressed, and many cited work related pressure as a key contributor. A simple solution is to immerse yourself in a relaxing colour palette. 

Neutral tones such as beige, white and grey are easy on the eyes and ideal choices for wall colours in a home office. Resene Half Rice Cake and Resene Solitude are great calming hues for office walls. If you want something a little more interesting, step up the scale to a colour like Resene Escape, it's a more definite colour without being too bright.

Make the desk an inviting and invigorating space

Since the majority of your work is conducted here, choosing the desk best suited to your work tasks is important. Do you require a broad, wide flat surface for piling textbooks, note files and placing your computer? Would a more narrow, taller standing desk suffice if you only use your laptop and a pen stand? Think about the nature of the majority of your tasks and buy a desk to suit.

Once you have your desk, choose storage solutions that help avoid clutter. Place all loose papers inside a decorative box, tuck all electric cords away by clipping them along the wall, and keep all pens hidden inside drawers. If your desk is built in a minimalist style, respect the aesthetic by keeping it completely empty. A clean, tidy working platform will also complement the wall colours.

If you prefer to have a container of pens on your worktop, try painting a jar in your favourite colour to hold them tidily together.

Add some fun and character with the chair 

If you don't choose a standing desk, your chair offers a chance for some creativity and spunk. While it is essential to have an ergonomic design for keeping your back posture healthy, there are ways to put a personal spin on your seat. Add cushions with fabrics reminding you of the places you have travelled, or for an industrial look buy some metal stools and slide them under the desk when they aren't in use.

For those keen to get on board with the latest design trends, purchase a ghost chair and drape a sheepskin rug over the top.

Display diplomas on the walls

Seeing framed certificates and degrees hanging on the walls of a home office is an excellent way to motivate yourself. These pieces of paper symbolise years of toil, leading to success at the end of the journey. They might be just the spark of inspiration you need while you work.

Place some potted plants throughout the room

Being cooped up indoors for hours on end is never fun, but the process can be made enjoyable by adding sprouts of green foliage throughout the room. Be creative with potted plants, as terrariums and hanging planters are all the rage right now. Paint the pots in your favourite colours. For a cheeky accent, place some painted toy dinosaurs inside a glass terrarium of succulents.

Build an immortal notice board 

There's nothing quite like the joy of ticking a completed task off your to-do list, but jotting down to-do lists on scrolls of paper isn't the most sustainable course for the environment and sometimes they can go walkabout. Instead, paint a section of your office with Resene Blackboard Paint and treat it like an everlasting chalk board – why not mix up 'things to do' with some motivational quotes every day? Or paint an area with Resene Write-on Wall Paint and you can write all over the space with whiteboard markers, then erase your words and drawings when you need to.

Enjoy getting your office set up right, as once it's ready, then it's time to start on the real work!

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