People always ask why I choose to work at the office every day, despite the majority of my team working remotely three days a week. And, to be fair, sometimes I do as well. I think that the main reason is the working setup at the office.

At my office I have an ergonomic standing desk, three 20" monitors, a custom mechanical keyboard, and a vertical mouse. I have none of that at home. I don’t even have a dedicated space to work at home. On the rare occasion that I do work from home, it’s on the couch with my laptop. It works, but it’s not comfortable.

cue light rail construction

The light rail construction, while absolutely necessary for the region, has added both uncertainty and time (roughly an extra hour) to my commute each day. It’s annoying enough that I’ve decided to start working from home on the same schedule as my coworker until construction completes in a few months.

What does a home office look like in our house? Where will it go? We don’t exactly have a lot of extra space in our small townhouse. After many hours of research (particularly via the wirecutter), measuring, and discussions, we decided to turn our dining room into the home office. The truth is that we barely used the dining room unless we had guests over for dinner.

The Home Office

It’s only been a few weeks now, but the new home office is working out quite well. 👍

  • Location: The home office is the space formerly known as the dining room.
  • Desk: Jarvis standing desk from fully
  • Monitor: LG 34WN80C-B 34" Ultrawide
  • Computer: 2018 MacBook Pro
  • Keyboard: Custom mechanical keyboard; split, column-staggered, colemak layout
  • Mouse: Anker Ergonomic Vertical
  • Chair: Steelcase (used from UW Surplus)