Now that we are all working from home, and maybe for a considerable time, there are a few items that can make the experience a whole lot better. One trick is to be able to, short term, adapt a home environment into a work environment, and then back again. The kitchen table has a whole new set of obligations to fulfill.
We have a rule at our house. If one is going to use a home surface for work, it needs to be returned to home use after work hours, otherwise we are always in a sort of work-home limbo land.
One way to quickly turn any surface into a desk is the addition of a simple desk lamp. For 40 years I have had some version of a swing-arm desk lamp on my work surface. They are lightweight and can easily be moved off the work table to return it to being a kitchen table. They also provide excellent work light no matter what you are doing.
My first lamp was a basic swing-arm work lamp of the type draftsmen were using in the ’70s. You can get one of these at Lowe’s for around $20.
Then I got into English Anglepoise swing-arm lamps. These are much heftier and come in at around $250. I was able to find one on eBay that had been nickel plated and refurbished. Sexy.
Now we have half a dozen Artemide Tolomeos, some of which we have had for 20 years. Classics. They are about $350 new, but you can find them for half that price on eBay. Once the crisis passes, and you are recalled to an actual office, the Tolemeos will make handsome bedside table lamps or side lamps in the living room. Buy it once and buy it right.
There is a considerable chance that the old 5-days-a-week-at-an-office work experience will no longer be the case once the crisis passes and we will all be working more from home than we did in the past. I would say there is a pretty high likelihood of that. Something to keep in mind when thinking about your home office setup.
