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The great home-office debate
comments (1) November 14th, 2008 in Blogs
Kevin Ireton, editor-at-large
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My wife and I argued about the space at the top of the stairs. We don’t have an attic in this tiny Cape, so I wanted to wall off the area and create a storage closet. Cynthia wanted to put the closet elsewhere and use the space under the roofline as a little home office, with a computer desk. I was holding my own until she suggested that we get Chuck Miller’s opinion.
Around the office, I’ve taken to
calling Chuck The Oracle because he knows a lot, remembers everything, and
has great ideas. Sometimes we’ll make a pretense of trying to think up a
good headline for an article instead of just going into Chuck’s office and
asking him to tell us the perfect headline, which is what eventually happens.
It’s like racking your brain to remember the actor who played
Murray on The Mary Tyler Moore Show instead of just using Google.
I was surprised that Cynthia would submit to arbitration with Chuck. She
usually begs me not to ask his opinion because while his ideas are great (skylights,
built-ins, cove lighting) and have improved our home in innumerable ways, his
ideas have also been know to increase the cost and slow the progress of our
renovation.
Well, it wasn’t even close. Chuck thought tucking a desk under the sloping
roofline, where a seated person would not be bothered by the limited headroom,
was a good use of the space. He said an office nook would feel protected and
cozy, but not isolated. And he liked that it would create an open feeling at
the top of stairs. I didn’t have a chance after that.
When I turned my attention to designing the home office, I considered extending
the balustrade to enclose the space, but I didn’t like the idea that the view
through the balusters would be the tangled mess of wires and papers that our
home office would inevitably become. I also figured we could use the extra
storage, so I built a half-wall for the handrail to die into, with paneling on
one side (Chuck’s idea) and bookshelves on the other.
The half-wall is just a big box, made of birch plywood with pine nosing. I
applied a framework of pine rails and stiles to create the paneled look. The 1x
pieces are joined with pocket screws, a trick I
learned from Gary Striegler’s article on wainscoting. I wasn’t sure if I
should run baseboard around the whole thing, but I’m glad I did. I capped the
unit with a piece of walnut.
Now if I would just repair the drywall I damaged in the process and hook up the
electrical, we could actually use the space.
posted in: Blogs, finish carpentry, additions, walls, stairs, study, Cape
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About this blog
As the editor of Fine Homebuilding, I spend my weekdays trying to produce a magazine that will satisfy 300,000 of the most demanding builders, both professional and amateur. As the owner of a 200-year old Cape in Connecticut’s Litchfield Hills, I spend weekends working on my house.
Each activity invariably informs, and complicates, the other. In this blog, I’ll offer observations from both worlds -- publishing and building -- with the hope of providing some useful or at least entertaining insights.
Comments (1)
Keep up the awesome creativity!
Pedro the Mule - Boxed in as usual
Posted: 11:27 pm on January 3rd
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