Maximizing Space: How to Turn Your Dining Room into a Functional Home Office

Jan 5

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I've always had a love of interior design and started to lean into that when I bought my first place on my own in May 2018. I lived in my condo for a little over five years and experienced a lot of changes in those five years: traveled to six countries, rode out a

global pandemic, experienced one failed relationship and breakup but then gained a new relationship that turned into marriage. This place was very special to me and it's where I realized that my love of interior design was very real.

When I first designed my dining room, I chose a dining room table with upholstered chairs that could be used for the occasional work-from-home day that I would take back in 2018-2019. Then the Covid-19 pandemic hit in full force in New York. I decided on Monday, March 8, 2020, to work from home because of the recommendations coming from former Governor Cuomo and former Mayor de Blasio about staggering the commute into New York City. I felt an uneasy feeling in my gut that said, “Don’t go,” and I listened. I began working from my dining room table, in one of the upholstered chairs, and thought, this will be good enough for the next month or two. I fully expected to be back in the office by the summer of 2020, once the winter was over, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned from the pandemic, it’s don’t assume you know anything.

By week 4 of working from home, my back started hurting from sitting in the upholstered dining room chair. I bought a new office chair first to help relieve the lower back pain, and that worked for a bit. But then, the shoulder pain started since the dining room table was a little higher than my seat. I adjusted the seat, but then my wrists began to hurt from the non-ergonomic-friendly keyboard and mouse. This cycle continued for a few more weeks before I finally broke down and realized: I need an actual office at home.

Then came the next challenge: where do I make an office in a condo that doesn't have any extra space for an office? I decided to modify the dining room and take over an empty corner near the windows. I bought a desk from Vari since I wanted the desk to be functional and most importantly, match the decor of the rest of the room. I also bought the cord box that hides all of the cords for the laptop, dual monitors, wireless headset, webcam, and docking station to wrangle all of these electronics together.

After the desk configuration was complete, thanks to the help from my-then-boyfriend-now-husband John, I added a few personal items to the wall next to the desk. All of these items are different things I’ve collected over the years, and the large canvas photo is my own photo from the castle in Sintra, Portugal. The wall directly in front of the desk is mostly empty since the desk does get adjusted from 28” from the floor to 40.5” when I’m standing.

This little corner meant a lot to me since was my work location for three years. It’s where I had Zoom happy hours, countless Zoom lunches, typical business meetings, and most importantly where I came up with the idea to start my own blog.