The Kitchen as a Home Office

The kitchen has the light, the coffee and the company. People work there whether or not the home has a study, so the practical response is to plan for it rather than to resist it.

The single thing that makes a kitchen workable as an office is accessible power that is not an extension lead across a worktop. Sockets in the island, a drawer with charging inside and a dedicated cable route solve most of it.

A dedicated return, a desk end on the island or a table away from the prep zone keeps laptops off the worktop and means lunch does not require packing the office away.

Working facing a window is comfortable; having a window behind you ruins every video call. Plan a work position with light from the side, and remember that hard kitchen surfaces make calls echo more than most rooms.