Creating a Home Office in a New York Apartment or House

Start with how you work, not with the furniture. A home office for eight hours of calls needs a door and quiet. One for an hour of paperwork needs a surface and a drawer. Settle that first, and the room, the wiring and the storage follow from it.

Decide what the room is for

• Concentration. If the goal is a plain room to think in, go minimal: clean lines, white walls, simple furniture, nothing on the desk that is not in use.
• Long days. If you will spend most of your working hours there, build for comfort: a chair that suits you, muted colors, and a desk large enough to spread out on.
• Creative work. If your surroundings feed the work, give them something to say: large art, strong color, good speakers.

Where it goes

A spare bedroom is the obvious place, and its closet becomes storage for supplies and files. Without a spare room, look for a wide hallway, an alcove, a deep closet fitted with a desk, or one end of the living room behind sliding doors. What counts is that the work can be shut away when you stop.

Power and data

Count everything that plugs in: computer, screens, printer, lamp, chargers, router. Then put the outlets where the desk will stand, at desk height if you can, so nothing trails across the floor. Run the data cable while the walls are open. In New York City electrical work is done under its own permit by a licensed electrical contractor (NYC Buildings), so plan the outlets with the rest of the renovation and not as an afterthought.

Light

Set the desk side-on to the window. Facing it, you squint. With your back to it, the screen glares and you are a silhouette on every video call. Add a ceiling light for the room and a lamp for the desk, on separate switches.

Quiet

A solid door that closes properly does more than any gadget. Soft surfaces do the rest: a rug, curtains, a wall of books. If a new partition is going up, have insulation put inside it while it is open. It costs little then and cannot be added later without opening the wall.

Storage and built-ins

A desk wall built in from side to side, with shelves above and file drawers below, uses a room far better than freestanding furniture, and it can be designed to close over the printer and the clutter. Our page on custom storage shows how such millwork is planned, and the built-ins on our entertainment units page are made the same way.

If the office is also a business

Working at a desk at home raises no questions. Running a business with visitors or staff does, and the city’s Zoning Resolution has a definition for it. A home occupation must be clearly incidental to the residential use of the home. It may occupy no more than 49 percent of the apartment’s floor area, and never more than 1,000 square feet. In connection with the practice of a profession, one person who does not live there may be employed. Clients may not wait outside the unit, and the use may not create noise, odor or similar nuisances (NYC Zoning Resolution). That is a summary and not legal advice. Your lease, or your co-op’s or condo’s rules, may be stricter, so read those too.

For the building work itself, see home renovation in NYC or apartment renovation in NYC. If the room is spare and you are still deciding what it should be, read what to do with your spare room.

Questions people ask