Home Office Transforms To Meet Consumer Customization

The home office is alive and well, and a growing body of evidence suggests the dedicated workspace is experiencing a metamorphosis.

To a significant extent, function is driving the transformation of home and small professional offices, and a change in living arrangements is having an effect.

A consumer desire to establish secondary workspaces in the home has driven office furniture development. With laptop computers, tablets and even smartphones making electronics use an “anywhere affair,” sofa tables and writing desks gained popularity. Demand for more traditional workstations waned. Today, vendors and retailers acknowledge that consumers are demanding home office furniture that more closely suits their preferences.

In the larger furniture market, this shopping tendency manifests itself as personalization. In home and small office, the trend can be considered differently, as it is more to specific purposes, and may be termed customization.

Although shoppers do continue to purchase utility pieces, with vendors noting demand for coffee tables with tops that fold up to accommodate the use of computing devices, purchasing of more feature-rich workstations is on the rise. New approaches to getting things done have blurred the lines between traditional home and small office set ups and utility furniture that can be used for task functions. Younger consumers have been looking for a combination of function and flexibility.

Angelo Surmelis, who has been designing furniture for Walmart and Walker Edison, has focused on younger and more space-starved consumers. From his perspective, customization is a vital component of developing office furniture for customers who have to make the most of less space. For many consumers, and especially apartment dwellers, the luxury of a separate room to house a home office just isn't an option.

"I'm a big believer in customization, having lived in small spaces for most of my adulthood," said Surmelis. "Making a single room function for living, work, eating and relaxing has been part of my design process."

As a result, his designs reflect broader lifestyle considerations. "The home office products I'm designing are less about 'just being for the office' and are more universal," Surmelis said. "Since our lives and homes are becoming less compartmental, the products we use can function for more than just one room in the home. Desks can double as dining tables or consoles. The office chair needs to look less like it only belongs in the work space, but that it can also feel and look stylish in a living room."

As a consequence, he said, "The style and design for office products is less formal and a lot more playful with a mix of material and the use of bold color. The one constant is storage. There can never be enough storage."

Considerations of fashion and scale often suggest the concerns of younger, apartment-dwelling consumers, but lifestyle changes are influencing other home office shoppers. Blake Zalcberg, CEO of OFM, a commercial furniture distributor, pointed out that changes in living circumstances aren't confined to the shift in demand from houses to apartments and condos. Homes have changed, too, and that is impacting the market for office furniture.

The prominence of the living room in floor plans has faded as consumers have turned to home layouts personalized to their lifestyles. Today, consumers may choose to put a home office just about anywhere in the home. With a consumer more aware of household fashion today, office space has to be consistent with their home décor style.

"People want office furniture that fits their home style," Zalcberg said. "They want a look that doesn't blow it apart. They've thought about the home throughout the entire purchasing process."

For the complete Home & Small Office Furniture Report, see the June 6, 2016, issue of HOMEWORLD BUSINESS®.