Decorating and Design - Moving-Scaling down-home office question

Hi. Hubby and I are moving from a rather large house into a tiny apartment for a while to save up for buying a house. We are so accustomed to having room to roam, so to speak, that the idea of scaling down as far as we need to is very daunting.

My biggest concern is my home office. Right now, I have a huge room all to myself, but in the apartment I will have to create my office space in the living room. Does anyone have any decorating/organization suggestions for how to make this work?

The living room in the apartment is a rectangle rather than square, so that does help a little. I use my office constantly because I am a writer, but I really don't want my office to take over the entire living room. That just wouldn't be fair. I'd rather have it at least slightly sectioned off.

My other option would be to have my office in the second bedroom, but I would have to be careful with that as well. My college bound boys will ony be home occasionally-holidays and summers, but I don't want them to have to climb over all my stuff to find their beds.

If anyone has suggestions, I would really appreciate it.

Can you take one end of the room as your office space, and divide it from the rest of the room by using a tall bookcase, large plants, standing screen, or something along those lines to offer a visual division between the work and living spaces of the room? That will also allow you to leave the desk cluttered at times, without everyone needing to see the clutter the moment they walk into your living room!

i would first decide, once & for all, where YOU would prefer your office to be. would you enjoy working & writing more being in the larger living room or in the more private & secluded (& smaller) bedroom upstairs? because you can make either space work.

upstairs, use either a twin bed or a futon (or even a loft bed) with storage underneath to free up as much space as possible for your office needs. utilize all the vertical space that you can with shelving & bookcases.

downstairs, arrange the living room seating group away from the office space to define that area, and then use the other area for your office. you don't need to use screens unless you want to (and have clutter to hide). but really, just orienting the 2 spaces away from each other is all that's necessary to visually separate them. we have just one living room and our sofa is floating out in the middle with it's back turned toward our computer desk, and that's all that's needed to define the 2 separate spaces.

if you decide on downstairs & need more screening, you can use a drapery track (like hospitals use for privacy curtains) mounted to the ceiling and hang a floor-to-ceiling drapery to close off your office space.

I had two two-drawer lateral file cabinets that I kept in our old home's finished basement. One for family files, one to keep my scrapbooking and stamping stuff in. When we moved into our new house I put them in our mainfloor (small) office about five feet apart and then put a large piece of laminate counter top (all straight, flat edges)

I then bought some great upholstery (heavy) material and made a piece to exactly fit the top. I glued velcro to the side edges of the counter top and sewed a piece of the upholstery material long enough to wrap around 3 sides (it's up against a wall). I even put a satin rope edging on the top of this piece. Put the other part of the velcro on that piece and it is now easy to remove when I really get down to business. I made a slit in the middle of the drop piece so that I can easily just lift it if I just need to get into the cabinets for something.

I put a small bookshelf under there also to keep my crafting books and my sewing machine. Everything is hidden and when not in use I have family pictures and knick knacks on top!

Ellen: so when you weren't using the desk, it looked like a.....what? table with a table cloth?

Yes, kind of. I have my nice desk in front of it so it kind of looks like a credenza. I have different artwork hanging above it also. The material is very contemporary and the lines of it very clean. I used a left over piece to make a simple cornice over the double windows in the room. When my husband first saw it he called it my altar! But I have received many compliments including from my father-in-law who is a commercial interior designer. (I think he mainly liked the material) But for a few dollars I have a place to store all of my "stuff" that looks nice and clean when all put together.