a new space

penny on October 1, 2015

For the past year, I’ve rarely spent a full day in my basement office. I found I’d unplug my laptop and work all around the house instead. The laptop is no longer my primary machine and I also recently made several other changes to how I work. So last week we decided to take these changes one step further and I moved into a corner of the library. The new space worked though the desk was too small for how I spread out during the day. On Sunday I purchased a new work surface and put my monitors up on a shelf at a height that should keep me working on better posture. There are still several little things to configure, but they’ll happen. I’ve only been here for two days (due to Sukkot), but so far I really like it.

20151001-anewspace

light

penny on June 6, 2013

Lighting-offA year ago I rearranged my office hopeful that with the change I would use more of my desk for work.. and not storage. While that change was met with success, there was a downside. My workspace was never particularly well lit and now a cloudy day could make my desk even more dark and gloomy.

The photo on the right is my office on a mostly sunny day, without any lights on.

Nice and inviting, right?

No. I’ve been asking for an improvement in my lighting almost since we moved in almost four years ago.

While working on other home improvement projects, we decided to upgrade the lights in my husband’s office (we had the same lighting fixture). While his office offers better natural lighting, this new lighting was remarkable. I kept making excuses to work in his office.

And so I renewed my campaign for new lighting. E agreed completely, it just took us a while to source the solution.

My office is also trickier to light. It’s in the basement and I have odd bits of infrastructure to work around.

The solution? LEDs. The LED recessed lighting fixture is much smaller than a standard can.

It was a small adventure to run the wiring (we actually encountered some insulation. Given the lack of it in this house, this came as a surprise) but once that was set up, the installation was a breeze. If you are not comfortable with this sort of project, please hire a licensed electrician.

The change is remarkable. I’ve been very productive this week. Despite some late night label-maker-fun to the contrary I’m happier.

Monday-Lighting-dark-outside Thursday-Lighting-on

On the left is my office Monday morning when it was so dark outside that my neighbor’s landscape lights turned on thinking it was night! To the right is my office this afternoon and it’s partly cloudy. There isn’t much change from Monday’s photo (other than a messier desk and rotating the gimbal) but in this case, the lack of natural fluctuations makes me happy.

Have you recently made a small change to make your work area more inviting?

found: one desk

penny on October 11, 2012

I’m always amazed to find a desk under all the stuff that piles up. It continues to surprise me how despite this digital age (and a scanner) my desk still becomes the dumping ground. It took two hours to arrive at this point and I’m still procrastinating sorting through the paper inbox.

I need to because my knitting notebook is missing and there are pattern design notes I’d rather not have to recreate.