Host: Working from home can be really tough especially if your computer is in a room
that serves more than one purpose. So Rhianne shows us some ways to make
your home office a room that you’ll actually love spending time in. Time to get
organized.

Rhianne: Here’s a look at my home office. Pretty basic but more often than not, I end up
taking my laptop to the other room. Meet interior designer Samantha Knapp.
Samantha says to keep your office productive and organized, you must create a
space that you actually want to spend time in.

Samantha: What I would first do is look around and see what you really don’t need on your
desk because you guys are sharing the desk so let’s make it really workable,
anything you really don’t think you need day to day on the desk, let’s take off.
I’m not that tech savvy but these are hard drives, let’s put those in the closet.
They’re very close, you can get to the closet and we can also free up the space
and maybe something like that gets tucked in that cubby hole.

Rhianne: Color can make a dull room fun. Samantha says two trashcans won't waste
space.

Samantha: I absolutely love color and trashcans are huge because so many people are in
their offices all day and they’re printing like mad and what better way to make
sure that you’re recycling your papers so things that you aren’t using, the
envelopes, the magazine, newspapers so I like to go double. Here’s one maybe
for your recyclables and here’s one for your garbage. So the clipboards are really
fun because not only are they colorful and bright but you can use them for
organization. What I like to do maybe I’ll put bills on the small one. I’ll put
something here that’s sort of pressing but not immediately pressing and then
maybe I’ll use this in my future down the pipeline to do list. It’s on your desk
you can’t forget about it and it’s sort of organized in a way that it’s easy access.

Rhianne: You can also buy decorative contact paper and use that to cover clipboards or
binders. Colorful containers can be used for paperclips, pushpins or just about
anything else. Even your walls can make you feel more productive. My
husband loves his baseball. This doesn’t do much for our home office, it’s more
of a man cave decoration.

Samantha: It is.

Rhianne: What do you have for us instead?

Samantha: This is a solution too to the problem here, first of all what we chose for this
particular space because you guys are sharing it, this is creative inspiration board
if we can get it standing in the right place but you’ll see that it’s brown so it’s got
a little bit of masculinity to it too. It’s not completely taking over the office in
your own way and what we did is we added some feminine inspirations but he
also has spaces. If he had his baseball tickets maybe they’re here but I of course
as a decorator, I like to think about things that inspire me.

Rhianne: It looks much more stylish than a typical cork board. If you’re spending hours in
your home office, you’ll also want to think about where you’re sitting.

Samantha: I like this chair you know we have a lot of accessories that are bright in here, this
is neutral. You can get it again at Tiger Lily’s Greenwich and I like that it’s cushy
I can probably sit here for about 8 hours.

Rhianne: You could take a nap.

Samantha: Let me see, I think I can sit here for about 8 to 10 hours and really feel
comfortable.

Rhianne: And don’t forget about the lighting. Why is lighting so important in our office, I
thought I had a nice lamp.

Samantha: You did have a nice lamp but one of the things I like to decorate with is pairs
because it sort of adds continuity. And one of the things I noticed in this
particular space is I looked up, there’s no above ceiling lighting here and it’s
really important if you’re in here for a long time to start turning on your lights
early and get your eyes adjusted because you can really damage your eyes
looking at the computer screen the whole entire time. Plus these a pair, it’s hot,
they’re warm, you can sort of change the light bulbs to get the mood that you
want and you rock and roll and you can really stay in here for hours on end.

Rhianne: Thanks to Samantha, my home office was transformed into a stylish workspace.
For better, I’m Rhianne.

Host: And if you want more great tips on jazzing up your home office or any room in
the house, check out Samantha’s website by heading to bettertv.com and clicking
on the link.