We are a company with 30 years of experience. During this time we have completed dozens of projects in London and the surrounding area. We offer original solutions for interiors.
Working from home has become more and more popular in the recent years, with more people deciding that staying with their laptop on the couch and working without having to leave the house is actually a good idea. Working remotely is obviously not for everyone, self-motivation can be a struggle and there are times when you have to leave the house and go to the office to work with your team. What can you do to make home office work for you? Design the space properly.
Working from home – the good, the bad, the challenging
The idea of staying at home with your work might seem like the best perspective compared to your loud and overcrowded office or contrary, be your worst nightmare. There are people who can easily motivate themselves to sit at their home desk at 8, finish their tasks as quickly as possible and have more free time to spend as the wish, but there are also those who would like to work from home but in reality spend most of their time procrastinating and tackle their tasks last minute. We have to admit, it’s not for everyone and while remote jobs are getting more and more popular, you have to ask yourself if you can actually do it.
Organising your home office
Let’s say you decided you want to give home office a try and your employer agreed to this. What’s next? First of all, you have to actually make space for yourself – working at a kitchen table, on the sofa or wherever you find it the most comfortable works well at the beginning, but can be quite harmful in the long run. If you plan on spending several hours a day working on your laptop, don’t bring it to bed – set it up on a desk and remember that ergonomic chairs and desks were invented for a reason.
Set your distractions aside. When planning a home office, people usually use what they have, which is their beauty desk in the bedroom, their coffee table in the living room or any other surface that you can put your laptop on. The amount of distractions this causes is unimaginable – you don’t even realise, at first, that you can’t focus on your work because of the unfinished dishes you see in the corner of your eye or the laundry that needs to be sorted and put away. Working from home, you’ll have to deal with that on a daily basis and there’s not much you can do about it other than getting an official office space, free of distractions.
Build an office in your basement
Basement renovation has been a trend for a while now and while we have many ideas on how you can use it to your advantage, one of the most popular choices is to turn the basement into a home office. Why? Because you can make it feel like you’re going out of the house and into the office without having to actually give up on working remotely. Once you go down to the basement and close the door behind you, you can work without any distractions and focus on the tasks at hand, but also remember in the back of your mind that you can go upstairs, you can get a homemade lunch, you can pick up the parcel that the delivery man tried to get to you for days now. A secluded at home office gives you the best of both worlds and for most people working from home, after struggling to find motivation, basement office makes the most sense.
If you have a basement and don’t use it for more than Christmas decorations storage, you’re doing it wrong. The potential that is hidden under your house is huge and in modern London, every square inch of space matters. Instead of planning to move just to get a bigger house in a less attractive area, think of how you can put your free basement space to your advantage. Don’t waste the possibilities that lay ahead – think creatively and make your house more useful than ever. Here are some of our best ideas for basement renovation.
Need a bedroom? Make one
Empty basements are perfect for remodelling and can be used for so many things, but one of the most common choices for people in London is actually a spare bedroom. It’s one of the most practical uses for such a space and with London houses being often quite small and limited, an extra guest bedroom might turn out to be a good investment.
Depending on the size of your basement, you can make your spare bedroom also your home office and since you’re not having guests every day, basement office will be the perfect place to go down to and work without distractions. Combined, a bedroom and a home office in the basement will require finishing up the walls, putting down some heating system and working around some structural elements, but once it’s finished up, it will be totally worth it.
A fancy wine cellar to complete your house
Another common choice for basement remodelling is a wine cellar. Who doesn’t like a good, aged bottle of wine and wouldn’t want to have it within their reach at all times? A basement wine cellar doesn’t have to be big and store hundreds or thousands of bottles – if you drink occasionally, putting your basement wine cellar under your stairs is a nice solution and when you decide to finish up the rest of the basement as well, it will serve as a cool feature of the room.
In-house swimming pool in central London? It’s possible!
Never imagined having an indoor swimming pool inside your London house? More and more people decide to do just that with their empty space in the basement. The process requires a lot of preparation and permissions but it’s worth it if you really want to just go down the stairs and lounge poolside with your friends and family.
A classic home cinema under your feet
We are leaving the best for last admitting that renovating your basement to be a home cinema is possibly top 1 choice for people getting into basement remodelling. Depending on what you decide, it’s so much cheaper than any other solutions available and you can easily use your at home cinema as a second living room, playroom or creative room.
Basements have so much creative potential the only thing you really need to do is to go down there and look around. The ideas will come to you the moment you see how much space you’re actually wasting.
Here at Dick Whittington we can help you design and refurbish your dream basement.
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