Practical Home Office Solutions

by Marilyn Zelinsky

Highlighted by scores of floor plans, sketches, and before-and-after photos, this problem-solver for do-it-yourselfers and consulting architects and designers includes hundreds of home-office examples... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0070633657
• ISBN13: 9780070633650
• Release Date: August 1998
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies
• Length: 329 Pages
• Weight: 1.62 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 7.4" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Real-world advice

Most books in this category showcase grand offices filled with beautiful expensive furniture and look like they've never been used. Zelinksy, on the other hand, writes about the challenges that real people face when trying to create a home office in a basement, attic, closet or a cramped corner of a bedroom. I especially liked how the book included loads of advice on how to kid-proof (or spouse-proof) your office, work in a really rural town, work with an assistant in your home, buy an ergonomic chair, find enough storage, and outfit an office on a really tight budget. Definitely worth the price.

A great tool for the home office revolution!

We are witnessing the next revolution in the workplace - the transition of work from the office to the home. Zelinsky's book offers practical advise that can help ease the transition of a new telecommuter, or improve the productivity of a seasoned home office worker. Beyond simply advising on furniture and technology solutions, Practical Home Office Solutions addresses the psychological issues that telecommuters and home-based entrepreneurs deal with on a daily basis. I would highly recommend for anyone who spends some part of their day working from the home.

Most practical book about home offices.

I am now planning to work at home so I wanted to read the books on the home office to see where to start. I liked the title, because it includes the word "practical" which is exactly what I was looking for. The book has a no-nonsense approach to planning a home office. I especially appreciated all the comments from regular folk who work at home, all the problems they had and the solutions they found. The book covers how to work at home, how to overcome isolation, how to find inexpensive furniture--I looked up a furniture liquidator in my town as the author suggested, and will buy my desk and chair from there at half the price I expected to pay elsewhere! I didn't even know these stores existed so I'm grateful for the book's advice.

This is a book written from both the Heart and Experience

The kitchen table. The laundry room. The corner of the master bedroom.This is where many Americans tend to locate their home offices, and Marilyn Zelinsky's book, "Practical Home Office Solutions" gives an excellent case as to why this spells disaster and even a better case on how to avoid it.Written from experience and from the heart, Marilyn takes us on a journey, somewhat personal but extremely factual, that shatters the stereotypical home office. We don't need a home office lifted from the pages of Architectural Digest. That's an unrealistic fantasy. We also don't work from the kitchen table. That's a recipe for failure. What we do need is a personal space that not only inspires us to work, but also enhances productivity and lifestyle while applying the principles of ergonomics. The author gives so many practical tips that any reader's ideal home office is lurking somewhere within the book's pages.How to buy a chair. Feng Shui for the Home Office. Working with children in the house. How to pull storage out of the air. Which American cities are most conducive to telecommuting. The list goes on.If you run a business from home, this book is a must. If you telecommute or run a telecommuting program for your company, this book gives you the facts, the figures and the studies necessary to make any corporate program work. Read it from cover to cover. Leave it on your desk and wander through it, pulling ideas out at random. It has an extensive resource guide and planning sheets to get you going when you are finally ready to make your ideal office happen.I give this book to some of my clients who are setting up home offices. As a home office design consultant myself, I find it a necessary tool for shattering the home office image the media has created and getting the creative juices flowing.