Design experts share their tips for functional work nooks

When Matt Birdsall “goes to work,” he opens the garage door and settles into a corner of a space he shares with his car.

The Medtronics engineer was sent home when the coronavirus pandemic began one year ago. For months he conducted business under a covered patio until winter began to loom. But he didn’t have any space in the house that was quiet where he could concentrate free from disruptions. So he set up in the quietest place he could find — his garage.

“I definitely need a place with no distractions,” from delivery people ringing the doorbell to dogs barking, he said.

Birdsall, like millions of people across the U.S., found himself forced to carve out work space on the fly in a home that wasn’t designed as an office. Some were lucky — they already had a designated room with a desk, shelves and a file cabinet. Others at least had a guest room, studio or spare bedroom for quick work conversations.

But many had no spare square footage at hand, particularly those with partners also working from home and kids distance learning over Zoom. With no coffeehouses or libraries open for remote working, a lot of people became nomads or squatters in their own homes, forced to move from the dining table at dinnertime or set up camp in unlikely and inconvenient places.

A Pew Research study last fall of people working at home found 23% said they struggled with inadequate workspace. And that didn’t account for the millions of kids needing space to do distance learning.

Even for those who could afford to add another room or build an accessory dwelling on their property, there was no time.

However, designers have been collaborating with clients to tuck work nooks into existing spaces, either with more functional furniture or with tidy built-ins that take advantage of unused corners, closets and wall space.

Design wide open

Really looking at the space you have — through different eyes — will help. It’s a process interior designer Gayle Forster calls “design wide open.”

“What I mean is, it’s right in front of you. What is available? And how can I make that space accommodate a dual purpose?” said Forster, who does a lot of work in The Sea Ranch, where many homes are compact and originally may have been built as second homes.

She said she solved one client’s workspace dilemma with a single credenza. He worked at the dining room table, with papers spread out everywhere that he then had to move for meals. Forster made better use of the space by finding a slim credenza that fit behind a low-backed modern couch on the living-room side of the open floor plan. The credenza serves both as a space divider and a place to store papers and office equipment.

“It was a simple solution without doing any construction,” she said.

She found space for another client in a loft. Accessible only with a ship’s ladder, it didn’t seem functional for anything but light storage. Forster designed a staircase, a relatively small investment that transformed the loft into usable work space for the client, an attorney, with room for a sleeper sofa.

Dual-purpose space

When Santa Rosa interior designer Natasha Stocker remodeled her kitchen, she created a workspace that fit in neatly with the cabinetry, in a sunny corner, with the desk level with the window. The desk surface is the same material as the countertops.

“One of our kitchen cabinets opens with a pull-out drawer for our printer. It’s hiding in plain sight. Another drawer is a file drawer,” Stocker said.

With three people working out of a two-bedroom, two-bath, 1,100-square-foot house — her teenage son is distance learning — the family needs multiple work spaces. Stocker found that sitting for long periods was painful. So she set up a makeshift standing desk on the kitchen island, perching her laptop on a pile of books. (Amazon shipping boxes also will work.)

“With the kitchen more open to the rest of the house, it’s a nice place to have a family computer. And you can keep tabs on your kids,” she said.

Now she’s remodeling her laundry room, working into the design a standing table that can be used for work, crafting or laundry folding and for those times when she needs privacy for a Zoom meeting or phone call.

Dining room offices

At the same time the pandemic forced many people to work at home, it put the kibosh on entertaining. So the dining room became a prime spot to annex for workspace. Stocker said for one client she designed what looks like a traditional china hutch in the dining room. But inside are charging outlets and organizers.

“She’s able to organize all her mail and her bills. When she works she just opens her doors and grabs what she needs. But then it all gets tucked away,“ Stocker said.

You also can take over a console table. Don’t have a spare room? How about the entryway? A slim table that might usually hold a vase and serve as a drop spot for keys can be turned into a work desk in a pinch, if you need a quiet spot out of the fray, Stocker said.

From breakfast to work nook

Designer Emily Mughannam of Fletcher Rhodes Interior Design in Sonoma solved a dilemma for one client who had several kids needing space for distance learning. She found room in their breakfast nook. For one side of the table, she designed a bench seat covered in easy-to-clean outdoor fabric. On two other sides are cushioned chairs on casters that can be rolled away to let those on the bench get in and out easily.

It makes for a cheerful and cozy learning space but required no major remodeling. The bench was not built in, so it can be replaced with more traditional chairs if the family chooses.

Closet space

A lot of people are tucking work stations into closets.

“You can take the doors off a closet and capture that space,” said Santa Rosa interior designer Neva Freeman. She converted a 30-inch-deep hallway linen closet into a workstation with a desk and an upper cabinet for storage.

“No kids are home anymore, so we don’t need a big, huge linen closet. My husband uses it all the time,” she said.

Freeman said old-fashioned armoires, all the rage in the 1990s to store big TVs, can be turned into workstations.

“You can close the doors and not see anything. It’s a nice way to repurpose a piece of old furniture that people aren’t using anymore,” she added.

Freeman worked with Matt Birdsall, who turned his garage into a home office.

“For somebody working full time every day at a desk and doing continuous Zoom calls, which is what so many people are doing, you need to get away. Some people are conducting business in the kitchen or with their washer and dryer going and kids running in and out. I feel bad for these people. But don’t overlook a space that actually could be used,” she said of the garage.

Birdsall put down an old exercise mat on the cold cement floor to keep his feet warm. His garage is lined with Sheetrock and insulated and he has a window for natural light. A space heater has made it bearable in winter.

Controlling the temperature is problematic in a garage, he said. But the upside is that the workspace is not inside the house.

“I have to have that separation of work and home. I can leave the garage and go home,” he said.

What room is hiding in your walls?

Interior designer Jessica Wichmann of Zeitgeist Sonoma has created many work nooks. One thing she often looks for, especially in older homes with interesting angles, is extra space within the framing and walls.

“You can steal hidden spaces from what is behind the Sheetrock wall,” she said.

She created a 6-by-6-foot work nook for one client inside the walls of an upper-story room. It was big enough for a wraparound desk. A skylight made it feel less claustrophobic.

Another couple she worked with had unfinished space that was earmarked for a long closet behind their bed. Wichmann finished off the space but added a wall in the middle, turning one half into a closet and the other half into a work nook. While designers generally recommend against working in your bedroom, a space where you need to decompress, it can work if you at least can close it off with a door.

“If it’s out of sight, it can be out of mind,” she said.

Wichmann made a work nook for another client by installing a floating desk in a tiny corner of a small room, with cabinets above it. An adjoining closet was turned into cabinet space for a printer, files and other paperwork and supplies.

Space for desks also can be found in informal eating areas off kitchens. And a desk can be set into a corner of a family room, away from the central activity.

Floating desks, surfaces attached to the wall with few or no legs, are space-efficient and provide room to tuck a chair underneath.

A lot of furniture companies have responded to the exodus from commercial offices by creating a wide variety of desk options, from slim, foldout desk/shelf combos to triangular desks to fit in a corner.

Designer Freeman said she sees the demand for home office space continuing.

“I think this is going to be around for a long time,” she said, “as companies realize they’ve gotten great efficiency with people working from home.”

You can reach Staff Writer Meg McConahey at 707-521-5204 or meg.mcconahey@pressdemocrat.com. OnTwitter @megmcconahey.