For some context, I live with my family of four in a 1400 sq. ft. flat in London. We have an open plan living room, dining room, and kitchen, plus three bedrooms: the primary bedroom, our kids’ shared bedroom, and a playroom. No private office for me, so a multi-purpose space, like so many people these days, has to suffice. I panic-ordered a lap desk in the hopes that would fix everything. My spine decided it did not. I wondered if I could sacrifice my entire closet in the name of a mini hideaway office. The mental image of all my homeless shoes gave me that answer. I was officially left with one option: combine my office with my kids’ playroom. I’d noticed this suggestion all over the place… bloggers and Pinterest and Instagram were full of suggestions that made it seem totally doable. But now, six months later, I know that WFH-playroom combos are a bad idea, in unexpected ways. Here are the seven reasons this was a terrible solution for my family. I’d love to say that I have a new solution, or that I found some ingenious hack that you, too, can try if you need a home office but have no space to spare. But, alas, I don’t. In some ways, the living room set-up was better, but in more ways… it was so much worse. So maybe don’t fall for the listicles singing the praises of the office playroom set-ups of the world. Now that school’s out for summer, I sense I’m about to shift to working nights, still writing and taking calls from my place between a shelf full of picture books and a rack full of princess costumes.
