12 Tips for Using Your Dining Room as a Home Office

Even if your dining room has ample natural light, it’s important to add one or two task lights to avoid eye strain. Interior designer Kristy Seibert converted her dining area into a full-time personal office space and incorporated a small, stylish desk lamp to ensure proper lighting.

Stow your work gear in buffets, sideboards or other existing dining storage units. Tiffany Skilling, interior designer and owner/founder of Tiffany Skilling Interiors at the Indiana Design Center, dedicated two shelves of her china cabinet to store her work supplies. “It allowed me to clear pieces out that I didn’t even like anymore,” she says.

Interior designer Erica Van Slyke built a storage banquette in her dining area to create a functional workspace. A storage banquette is a convenient place to stow work gear at the end of the day. Thanks to its proximity to wall outlets, Erica’s banquette also allows her to power up devices without creating a tripping hazard.

Relocate those place mats and cloth napkins and instead use table drawers for work supplies. Interior design team Cortney and Robert Novogratz, authors of Design Fix, used the drawers of their vintage apothecary dining room table to store office supplies. The impressive length of this table also allowed the couple to work and conduct meetings while their children finished schoolwork.