I’m a writer and poet. Ideally, I need a quiet place to be
creative. It doesn’t have to be large. But for years I never had such a space
other than a shared dining room table. Team that with the notion that I was
soon to embark on a new work-from-home schedule after a number of years
commuting 50 miles a day to and from a suburban company office. Alas, it was high
time for my own home office. I was joining the 30 million Americans who now
work from home, and more than 60 million who telecommute.
My husband and I have a smallish house, which had no extra
bedroom at that time to use as an office. I looked into renting a small office
space close to home. Of course, since we
live in the city of Chicago proper, commercial rents are high, even for a
one-room office. My husband panicked a little. He didn’t want me spending extra
money we didn’t have on office rent.
A creative poet and thinker himself, he brainstormed and suggested
converting an enclosed second-floor heated back porch into my home office. It
had previously been used as a catchall for storage, odd boxes and a rack of
off-season clothes. Similar to the way other people use an attic. I thought we really
needed the space for all that stuff. Yet as we cleaned it out, sorted through, and
made sure our grown kids took what belongings were theirs, the five-and-a-half
foot by 12-foot space opened up before my eyes.
Another woman may have made it into a light and airy
feminine walk-in closet, complete with a bench, accordion screen and
full-length mirror. And that’s what I may eventually turn that room into if and
when we sell our house. A house with an extra closet is extra valuable.
But that can wait. This office was my priority. And for that
space, I favored the “Old Chicago” colors of dark rustic red, olive green and ochre
yellow for my palette. My husband and stepson gifted me for my birthday with
the room conversion paint and labor, meticulously painting each surface in
those colors – juggling walls and trim with a mix-and-match of the three hues.
Adding a desk, a lamp, a small file cabinet, a supportive
office chair, a number of bookshelves, a small throw rug, curtains that picked
up the color scheme, and Chicago-themed art and photos, my office was complete.
I now lovingly call it my “Way-Back Room,” not only because is
it the farthest room at the back of the house (with a beautiful view of our
back urban vegetable garden, by the way), but also because it’s provided a
serene, inspiring and personal space for me to find my “way back” to my writing
whenever I enter.
A few small details: I like to cover my desk with a horizontal
woven runner to add to even more quiet to the desk, where I place my laptop and
active writing files. I stash my cellphone on a higher shelf away from me and
use a coaster on my desk to prevent rings and spills from my morning coffee
cup. A small wastebasket has proved invaluable in helping get rid of excess
papers I no longer need, with the next stop the recycling bin.
Rather odd and serendipitous in such a small space, there are two doors leading from my office. One that connects to the rest of the second
floor, and the other leading down back stairs to the first floor kitchen -- where
I can grab coffee and pad back up to my haven without waking my husband during
early morning writing sessions.
