Best Office Decor: Decoration Meets Functionality (2023)

While working from home can be a dream come true, keeping your focus and motivation while working at home has its own unique set of challenges. While your home was probably not designed for paid work, good office decor can help.

Transform your home office with proper lighting, uncluttered workspaces, ergonometric furniture and decorations that motivate you. Whether you have a dedicated home office or just a nook, you can use office decor to inspire creativity and productivity.

Perhaps the hardest part of working from home is drawing the line between personal and private. It’s easy for daily life to clutter your workspace and make you less efficient and more disorganized. That said, an austere minimal workspace isn’t for everyone. You might still need or want books, reference materials and fun knick-knacks nearby. Look for shelving and bookshelves that help you organize the things you need at arm’s reach and banish what you don’t need. 

For many urban dwellers, the thought of having a dedicated room for working is a distant dream. That said, even a small nook can work well as a dedicated home office. If you have space for a desk, use the vertical space above it for shelves to keep your work life organized in one space. Choose furnishings that blend with the rest of the decor so it feels like a natural extension of the room.

Studies are increasingly showing the harm of blue light and the benefits of using natural light. Natural light reduces eye strain, improves your mood, increases alertness and reduces the number of headaches. If you have a window, position your desk so you can enjoy the natural light as you work. Position your desk to avoid glare on your monitor.

Not every home office has huge windows or great natural light. After you’ve assessed the natural light, check your overhead light. You might need to add overhead light or a standing lamp near your desk. It’s best to one of the best ways to reduce eye strain and add warmth to your workplace is to add some lighting to your desk. While desk lights can be an inexpensive way to create directional light, you might want to

One advantage of working from home is breaking away from the inoffensive beiges and drab grays of corporate life. Adding color can be an easy and inexpensive way to unify a space, change the mood, and add a dash of personality. Whether it’s creating a color-themed office or adding a few accent colors to your desk, think of how to incorporate complementary hues.

While filing cabinets might seem like a pre-digital relic, even in the digital age, most of us are swimming in more paper than we know what to do with. While good, strong filing cabinets may not be the most glamourous item in your home office, they are incredibly practical and come in styles from retro-chic to modern minimalist. Organize all the paperwork you’ll need to reference again and clear the papers that will otherwise sit indefinitely on your desk. 

One of the simplest and least expensive ways to change the tone of your whole room quickly is to add color to your walls. If you’re nervous, choose an accent wall and leave the others white. Then go bold — stay away from boring beiges and go for jewel tones that never go out of style.  

While our homes tend to naturally be full of different textures and patterns, offices often end up very smooth, monotone, and full of shiny, inorganic surfaces. When you’re planning your office decor, you’ll want to find a blend of materials and textures that fit with your home decor without being overly distracting. Whether it’s a wood grain desk, upholstered chair or wall hanging, texture can allow you to add personality and a tactile feel can bring “home” into your office decor.

A great part of working at home is you can avoid bland motivational corporate artwork and decorate your walls in a way that speaks to you. Decorating your walls with posters, prints, paintings or even neon adds a personal touch to your home office. You can support local artists by buying prints or paintings, frame your children’s artwork, or look for quotes that inspire you.

Adding plants to your home office gives it a calming, stylish touch. Plants clean the air, stabilize humidity levels, and add a much needed organic element to your workspace. You can use tall houseplants on the floor to divide up a larger room or enjoy them on your desk to reduce stress.

No matter how perfect your home office is, after a few months of sitting in the same place every day, you might start to feel restless. The advantage of working from home is you can move your workplace around and improvise. Set up a makeshift desk in your living room and enjoy the view for a few days or take your laptop to the porch when the weather is good. Changing your work spot can trigger your creativity and melt away mental blocks. Take advantage of the flexibility you have working from home. 

One of the most important parts of working at home is creating rituals to mentally move from “home” to “work” and back again. This is an important separation as it’s easy for work and home life to blur together until you feel as if you’re never completely off work. If you have a dedicated room which is your home office, it might be as simple as going into your office and shutting the door. If you’re working at the kitchen table, you might need something more structured like clearing and washing down the table before you start working or sitting in a specific chair that puts you in work mode.