Many men and women out there have more than a traditional home office going on in their home. Some home-based workers depend on their hardware and crafting skills for the big payoff and that is both commendable and a great decision. Depending on your area, you may find you have a near monopoly on a niche, needed business. To do this though, you will have to construct your own hardware workstation for your home office, and here we will go over how to do that.
How much room do you need?
The first question to answer with your home office workstation is how much room you need to get your job done. This will of course depend on what you are doing. What hardware do you need space for? A sewing machine? A wood cutter? Soldering tools? Welding tools?
If you only need the space of a regular home office, you have a much easier situation to build around. A spare bedroom after your kid moves out works just fine for this expanding passion. However, if you need the space to make a big mess with a wood cutter, you have to have the ability to do the work outside the house. You may have room in the garage for such work, or you may need to build an office in the backyard as a sort of workshed.
Plans for an Office Workstation
If you are working inside and will not be making too much of a mess, it is not too difficult to convert a more traditional home office into a hardware-friendly office. The first thing you may need is a larger or more useful deskspace. We have a few tips for how to make that work here.
-
Design your desk with enough surface area in mind
What is your plan for using this desk? What sort of hardware are we going to need to fit on it? Since it is your home business, you likely will not be thrilled to remove heavy machinery from your deskspace every single day. In lieu of that inconvenience, your desk should be large enough to provide for that. Whatever equipment or work you need to do, your desk needs to provide for that.
-
Add extra storage space
Likely, you will need plenty of room to keep your many items and tools to do your work. If you are sewing, for example, you will have many implements to keep around and possibly hundreds of spools of thread to keep on hand. There are several ways to add extra storage space, such as a vertical drawer with many thin shelves, sliding out far enough that you can fit many small items inside. If you need a larger area, maybe consider a revolving cabinet for a bit of extra storage space while still maximizing your usage of the desk where normal shelves might fail.
-
Does the desk need to be mobile?
Are you going to move the desk around the office or even around your home for various projects? This is a consideration whether your workspace is inside or out, but wheels may make your workspace much more efficient if you ever need to keep it mobile to keep your business moving.
-
Consider a second desk or an L-shaped desk
You may need both space for your hardware work as well as your computer or other office work. It is up to you to decide if your room is best designed to support a second desk for this, and if you would like to transfer between the two, or if you could possibly use a desk shaped for more convenience. With something of an L-shape, you might be able to simply circle from hardware labor to web surfing seamlessly, no pun intended for the sewers.
-
Design with the room’s amenities in mind
Keep your room in mind when building your home office workspace. You may need to be closer to the internet modem maximize your internet speed. Your desk will have to be near the electrical outlets, so make sure all of your hardware has access to those amenities.
Plans for an Outdoor Workstation
-
What material workstation do you need?
Building your outdoor workstation sturdily enough is a major consideration to get your work done at all. Will it need to withstand heavy weight? Then it will need to be reinforced strongly by design and material. Will it need to withstand intense heat, or will only a small part need to be fireproof for soldering? Will the workstation be best if it is simply wooden so that you can poke holes through it without dulling your instruments too heavily? All of these are incredibly important questions to answer to build the right sort of outdoor workstation.
-
What size of workstation do you need?
The spirit of this question is similar to the indoor workstation, though it is certainly less likely that you will want to do computer work in the same area as you are accomplishing this messier hardware work. Will it need to be large enough to fit any sort of tools or instruments? You may want to leave plenty of floor space available in case your desk is just never possibly big enough for every eventuality.
-
Where can you make room for storage?
If you are building this space in the garage, you have likely already thought about where you will store things. However if you are building a standalone workstation in some sort of shed, you may need to consider installing extra implements just for storage room. You may need shelves and drawers, as well as potentially large cabinets to house all of your larger tools.
-
How can you make safety precautions?
Making safety precautions with this messier hardware work is one of the first things to consider. Do you need safety eyewear for this work? Do you need heat-resistant gloves or other protection? You may need to protect your workspace as well as your physical well-being though, so remember to consider where you place your dangerous machinery. How will the effects of using it interact with the rest of the space? The last thing you want is for your woodcutter to fling sawdust into a computer hard drive, or a soldering iron to unfortunately fall onto a electrical connection. Be thoughtful and careful of accidents when designing this space, especially accidents that might not be caused by you. Not that you could do anything wrong, right?
-
Do you have other needs for the space?
If you are thinking of using a garage for a workstation, you likely will not be parking a vehicle in that space any longer. But if you are considering using half the garage for your car and half for your workstation, remember to make sure your vehicle is protected from your machinery. It will take very little to cause a small ding and ruin a day. If you are using a shed of some sort, do you intend to use it for any sort of storage? Remember to keep caustic chemicals separate so that they will not erode any mechanical equipment or fumigate you during your work.
Final Considerations
As with all home office spaces, a hardware workstation is a staple for your business and your home life. It must be constructed to best suit your business’s needs, but it has to be designed with a family in mind if you have one. Keep all dangerous equipment locked up if you have small children, and be attentive whenever they are around if you want to show them what you do. Of course, involving your young ones in such work is a great plan and will only grow your relationship with them, but be smart and safe. If you are not sure they can be protected properly yet, then they cannot be involved yet. This goes the same for pets, though they are more likely not that interested in what you are doing so much as where dinner is. That said, remember to not work so hard and long on your projects that you neglect such vital responsibilities. Whether you work to live or live to work, remember to live while you work.