At Work at Home: Design Ideas for Your Home Workplace [Hardcover]

Neal Zimmerman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2001

More than 50 million Americans work at home ... and the work they do is as varied as the houses they live in. This fresh take on home workspaces looks at a wide range of designs that suit some unique employment needs -- from a daycare center to a dance studio.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Zimmerman (Home Office Design, LJ 9/15/96), who has 25 years of experience as a corporate workplace designer and architect, explains how to create an office at home. He begins by analyzing individual needs and plans and then discusses various location and space options, such as sharing a room, rooms completely dedicated to work, adding to a home office, and separate buildings either converted or newly constructed. He provides many real-life examples illustrated with photographs, including some with floor plans. This book is a nice complement to Zimmerman's previous work as well as to Lorrie Mack's Calm Working Spaces (LJ 1/01). Purchase if more is needed on home offices.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 300 pages
• Publisher: Taunton Press; First Edition edition (October 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1561583790
• ISBN-13: 978-1561583799
• Product Dimensions: 11.2 x 9.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #658,415 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Working at home and loving it!, December 21, 2001

By 

Michael K. Smith (South Louisiana) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: At Work at Home: Design Ideas for Your Home Workplace (Hardcover)

Like Powers's _Living with Books_ and Ellis's _At Home with Books,_ which I've reviewed in the past, this is the sort of lushly illustrated volume anyone with similar interests will sit and drool over. If you work at home, or if you need a second space at home for the overspill from your office job, you have a number of options: Claim a corner of an existing space in your house or apartment (living room, kitchen, even a niche off a hallway), convert a spare bedroom or even a walk-in closet, move into the attic or the basement (if you live in the part of the country that HAS attics and basements), make a separate dedicated space out of a garage or other outbuilding, or even construct a new space on your property, either attached to your house or semi-isolated in a handy patch of woods. (My own home office, like many others, used to be a kid's bedroom, and I haven't done much to it; it still has the Winnie-the-Pooh ceiling fixture.) The author walks you through all these possibilities and has you think about zoning and property-line setbacks, and floor and ceiling materials, and light sources and plumbing, and active storage and bookshelving. He also points out the need to control your workspace, to separate work from home life, and to identify "swing spaces." How much space do you really need? Maybe not as much as you think. Consider as a guide the acronym "CAMP," which stands for Computer station, Administrative station, Meeting station, and Project station. The need may be minimal (I never have clients in my home) and some of the others may be combined (I do admin work at the same work table where I do projects), but looking at it this way will lead you to reconsider your own SoHo. The pictures in this book, naturally, will make you jealous of those with the design talent and the money to establish such luscious work areas. The nicest and most unusual, not surprisingly, belong to architects working at home. Nevertheless, even with my own relatively simple needs, I picked up a number of ideas on how to optimize my own space.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great for Architects, August 21, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: At Work at Home: Design Ideas for Your Home Workplace (Hardcover)

As the reviewer said, this is an architect's dream book, since most of the offices belong to architects. The photos are quite lovely, but this is not quite the right book for some help on what to do with your existing space without hiring an architect to overhaul it all. Rather short on practical points, which I assume are covered much better in the other books available. nothing on furniture, desks, chairs, etc., or cabinets to store your stuff.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars DOES YOUR HOME OFFICE LOOK LIKE A DISASTER AREA?, October 31, 2001

By 

Sandra D. Peters "Seagull Books" (Prince Edward Island, Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: At Work at Home: Design Ideas for Your Home Workplace (Hardcover)

If your home office looks like it does not belong there, or it appears as though you are co-ordinating a world relief project in a disaster area, this book is for you. Included here are some wonderful floor plans (large and small areas) and beautiful photographs that will give you ideas on how to incorporate an efficient and attractive office space into your home. No, you do not have to move to the garage and you do not have to "live among the ruins" any longer.

Whether you are renovating an existing room, planning to add on an extra room, or building a completely separate facility, there is something here for everyone. If you find yourself with more files on the floor than in the filing cabinet, an inefficient computer station (there is nothing like getting tied up in the phone cord, while trying to find a vacant space on the top of your desk to maneuver that little mouse around,)it is time to make some chaanges and this book is for you. One is only limited by the size of their budget. Great ideas, great book!