Last week, ProBlogger Darren Rowse showed off his work space and encouraged us to do the same. I considered it, but got caught up in the first week of school and catching up on my work and forgot. Then today I saw this post from Ryan at Performancing, also encouraging us to show our workspaces. So I got out my digital camera. Welcome to blog central.
This is where I work.
A few weeks ago it was nothing more than a room filled with old toys and other storage. I alternated working between a corner of my kitchen table and a spot in the dining room. Now that business is booming, we decided an office is in order. My husband painted and set up a place for me to work. It’s nothing fancy – as you can see, there’s a folding table holding our coputers and the book shelf is actually my grandmother’s old microwave cart and holds books I’m to review. That overflowing basket is promotional material -people like to send me stuff in hopes of my writing about it. That’s my “to do” basket. Oh and those flowers were a Mother’s Day gift from my son.
My computer is an HP Pavillion – a Christmas gift from my husband two years ago. The smaller Pavillion is also shared by my husband and son.
That’s it. It’s nothing fancy but considering my last spot in a corner of the dining room, I’ll take it! It’s heavenly having my own space to work. Now, I just need a desk.
So where do you work?
Goodness, my workplace is full of junk. I wish I could take a picture and show everyone what it looks like. But you’ll most probably be appalled at the sight.
BTW Deb, I look forward to the time people start sending me free promotional materials too. LOL.
I love free stuff
My husband and I share a tiny office at one end of our bedroom since we’re in a small rental home at the moment. We swap out. I get the office to do my writing during the day while our daughter naps, and he gets it to enter grades and build tests at night. I take the laptop and use the kitchen desk after our daughter’s in bed.
We’re shooting for a dedicated office with two separate work spaces in about three years.
I could win many a messiest office contests. I try to take time to straighten up for an hour before taking a daughter to school in the morning, but it’s not enough time.
My teen kids are supposed to help (for compensation), but I guess they think it’s not worth it at any price. Then they complain they have no money — but that’s another issue.
I can’t stress strongly enough how important it is to have an office area — preferably a separate room. IRS wants that for office in home deduction. And it’s important to separate work and home — even if you work in the home.
I’m just getting started in freelance writing and have been lurking around your blog for several weeks now.
My workplace is both on a tray table in the living room and at a small computer desk upstairs. The tray table setup is using an Apple MacBook Pro, while the upstairs computer is a generic Pentium 4 desktop with a 21″ monitor.
Like Deb, I will probably create a more proper office setup once I get this new career off the ground.
I guess I’m lucky. We had a storage room on our attached carport. My husband and I gutted it. Then we insulated, wired, and drywalled it and installed a nice big window.
All I had to do was get rid of a bunch of junk I’d have never used. The garage sale money I got from selling it covered a lot of the cost of renovation.
You can try your local Habitat for Humanity Restore for good deals on light fixtures, doors, windows and even a desk.
Your work site puts mine to shame! My office started out so nice but I run a used book business from home and have stacks of books that I need to price and list laying all over – hard to find anything in here! But work goes on as usual.
I need to buy a laptop now so I can do some of my writing from my bedroom or cabin where I will not feel as cramped!
I’m lucky in that I have an office with a door. When my DH & I bought our home, having an office was a top priority (it was either office or 5th bedroom). At night, however, I like to sit on the couch with the laptop instead of in the office all by myself.
All I can say is that your workspace is so neat and organized. My compliments! I definitely have more space than you Deb, but with my mess, you wouldn’t really know it.
We have the privilege in Germany to have office furnishings and fixtures as tax deductibles. That’s how we managed to buy a real office desk and office chairs. Just curious whether this is also true in the US and other parts of the world…
I … I don’t understand. Where is themug of tea? Where are the cats?
Erik -
I’m not a tea drinker. BUT if you look to the left of my laptop you’ll see a FWJ mug filled with coffee.
And Logan and Gnocchi, my two kittens, are in the window.
Deb, Pottery Barn has a cool desk that I’ve been wanting for years… it’s kind of old-fashioned.
http://www.potterybarn.com/gift/thm/THMHOA/index.cfm
Deb,
Is there an e-mail address that we can contact you at for positive leads? There are a few that I would like to share with the fellow bloggers, but I am not sure that the comment section is the appropriate forum.
Thanks!
Sarah
My husband and I share an office — our second bedroom — but I have it to myself most of the time. We both have (genuine) antique desks. Actually, virtually all of our furtniture is antique. I prefer old stuff.
I do a lot of my work at my desk or in the comfy old platform rocker right next to it. However, since I have my laptop, I like to move around a lot during the day to mix things up a bit. One of my favorite places the last month or so has been the front porch, usually with one of my cats to keep me company.
I’m also thinking about taking my laptop up to the stables and working while my horse grazes, since the stable rules say that we can’t leave our horses turned out unattended. However, I’m going to have to figure out a comfortable (and safe) place to sit out there before I can implement that plan.
I think I’ll blog about this in a little more detail tomorrow. I’ll post a link when I do.
Is that a piece of cardboard I see, hiding the wiring? If so, we have something in common, I have the same thing! Nice work space, and smart thinking on our part, huh?
My desk is in a corner of my living room. I’d like to move into the second bedroom but need to get roadrunner hooked up for in there and remove the tons of toys.
A topic we discuss over and over again is how we are sick of being offered jobs for pennies and how we want to be taken seriously.
Then we start a thread with people saying they work on a TV tray or at the kitchen table, on the sofa, etc. This does not sound professional at all and if potential clients want to hire a professional, even though you and I know we can write anywhere and under just about any circumstances, it does not appear very professional to be working in anything other than an office in your home, set up specifically for that.
So, my feeling is that if we are requesting clients to take us seriously and pay us as professionals, we need to at least keep up that image and work in what is perceived to be a professional environment.
Just as in advertising…it’s always the “packaging” that sells. You must “package” yourself as a professional if you are to be treated and paid as one.
Packaging is important. I have to disagree that where we do our work matters as much as you say it does Workingfordollars.
Many times our work speaks for itself and clients usually don’t ask where we work.
I think what “Writing for Dollars” is trying to say is that we need to take ourselves seriously before we can expect anyone else to.
However, I disagree that writing on a TV tray means we don’t take ourselves seriously enough. After all, what is a desk except a bunch of pieces of wood (or metal, or plastic) nailed together? It’s no different than a TV tray.
I argue that it’s how you think about your workspace that makes a difference. You don’t need a fancy Pottery Barn desk to take your workspace seriously. As long as you have a space set aside primarily for working, and respect it as such, I doubt you’ll have a problem.
As Micah pointed out, our clients don’t ask to see our workspace. You are right that packaging is important, but as freelancers I don’t believe our workspaces are part of that. If we have professional websites, resumes, and correspondence, and we do quality work, who the he!l cares if we work in our pajamas at a TV tray?
I’m a bit conflicted here, because part of me wants to agree with “Writing for Dollars”. There is nothing more important than a certain level of professionalism on our part, so that we are taken seriously, and insisting on this from job posters – so that we can tell the scams from the real jobs.
But … well, if you saw where I worked, the answer is “everywhere”. My favorite place is a bar-height table that’s only 24″ round, partly because the cats can’t reach it as easily. The desk? Oh, let’s not go there.
I have big plans for the back room, but … well, I don’t want to go there, either. Suffice it to say that I need about $10k to realize that little corner of my amateur architect’s instincts.
Is it wrong to talk about our slovenly state? I will here, but not to a client. Never. When I have people over at the house for a Board training or worksession (and workout my amateur Martha Stewart) I spend about a week cleaning. They have to believe that my 150 year old house always looks like an antebellum museum. They have to think that I’m organized and caring.
I think what we say here doesn’t quite count. But it’s best not to develop bad habits just because we found so many kewl people to comiserate and celebrate with.
Erik –
There are some clients where I would agree with you — I don’t tell them things like my habit of working on the porch with my cat. However, I have more personal relationships with some of my long-time clients, and I really don’t care if they know I work in my pajamas sometimes.
Regardless of what I tell my clients, I have no qualms about posting it on my blog. My blog is more for other freelancers than clients, anyway. Anyway, if a potential client stumbles on my blog and starts doubting the quality of my work simply because I like to work in an overstuffed ’40s rocker, well then, that’s probably not someone who would have been very pleasant to work with anyway.
By the way, I now have a post live on my own blog about where I work. Some of you may like to hop on over there and check it out, if only to see the pictures…
Thanks for the pics, Katharine, but you won’t be seeing any from me any time soon. I have no intentions of cleaning until … well, not for a while.
I have one of my cats (four in total) and my dog up on facebook, tho, along with the park I do most of my work in during the summer. I’ll leave it at that.
By the way, Erik, you might like to check out the pictures, too. Both Michael and I really like older houses, too. Our house isn’t nearly as old as yours — it’s a bungalow from 1920 — but it still has its charm. We had the good luck of finding an old house that hadn’t had a lot of ridiculous remodeling done, so we get to choose how to do the updates without compromising the house’s character.
I agree that it doesn’t matter where we work, what matters is how we work.
Nevertheless, the thought of an antique varnished wood as a desk really appeals to me. Somehow, aesthetics provide a push in right direction for me. Our help tidies my desk every morning but by midday, it’s reverted to its old clutter. When I tidy it up again, I find myself eager to go back to work. It’s a bit funny, really.
Erik, I want to see your cats! Katharine, I love your cat! I love black cats ♥
The WordPress comment bug finally ditched not one, but two of my comments. Here is my original comment:
Erik –
You can send me messy pics. Truly, I won’t care. I can send you a picture of our basement and what my desk looks like right this moment — that might make you feel a little better.
Mariella –
I have two cats, one black and one white. The white one is deaf and is the oddest cat I have ever known.
We also have two big dogs, a hamster that we found in our backyard one night last summer, and (of course) my horse.
We live in a menagerie…….
i am very tempted to post a picture of my workplace just to lure Erik into doing the same (I want to see a part of his antique house).
If only my digital camera works right now. Maybe tomorrow~
Only small parts of the desk are visible. The occasional pile of papers come avalanching down and that’s when things get tossed away. The monitor sticks out enough to see what’s being done on it. The keyboard shelf is tidy but usually has either a stapler or hole punch beside the keyboard. The shelves above me are being used to hold writing books. Mostly it’s a hazardous zone. I should declare it so. It’s a mess. I’d never tell anyone…oh shucks… I just did. Well, the world’s messiest writer. But my computer is in order and clear of extra junk. At least I can work on my laptop outside when the mess gets to me.
Some day…
My workspace is extremely messy, but I like it that way because I know where everything is. A week or so ago I also dumped a bunch of framed prints on the ground in my office that need to be hung around the house….let’s just say that they’re still lying in the middle of the floor, along with two rubbermaid bins and a pile of writing magazines.
Katharine>> I saw the pics of your horse. What happened? How did he/she get that injury?
Mariella –
I know, poor thing, huh?
Just over a month ago, when he was still staying at the in-law’s place, he got tangled up in a wire fence. You can see how the cut spirals around and up his leg. Apparently he tried pretty hard to get loose, and the wire cut him up pretty bad. The vet thought he had been there a long time.
Unfortunately, the cut then got infected, partly because my sister-in-law wasn’t washing it out. (Panama is a kicker, and to top it off I don’t think he likes her very much.) After three vet visits, it is finally healing.
He also cut up his nose the night they loaded him up on the trailer to bring him out here. He has had a bad trailer experience with his mother when he was a yearling, so he freaked out and bolted, running right through a fence (him and fences!!) to try to get back into the pasture. The cut on his nose has healed up quickly, though.
I’m relieved that we have Panama out here now, because I can keep an eye on his leg, and because he is now in a more controlled environment. Also, I know he wasn’t getting enough attention there. They have three horses of their own, a donkey, four dogs, two cats, two toddlers, and a handful of financial problems to keep them busy. Since he arrived last Thursday, I’ve been to the stables once or twice a day to visit and work with him, and I can already see a difference.
Katharine, I’ve been trying to post in your blog for a while, but I can’t seem to.
And just earlier, if my posting I worked, I think I commented 10 times (the same thing, just kept hitting submit..sorry!)
Really? That’s weird. I haven’t gotten any comments on my blog, so no worries about hitting submit so many times.
What’s it doing when you try to submit your comment?
it just says “comments are subject to moderation” or something akin to that.
Just wanted to thank you for the heads up about that writers’ conference! got my registration application one day in before the deadline. 
Well, I do have my blog set to allow me to moderate comments before they are posted. However, I don’t have any of yours showing up as comments to be moderated.
I’m glad you got into the online writers conference! It should be a lot of fun!
What is the deadline, by the way? I signed up several weeks ago, so I don’t remember anymore.
Tomorrow! I was lucky to have seen your post on time. I was also commenting on your entries about Panama. Maybe there’s something wrong with my blogger account. I should check it out…but I tried submitting Anonymous comments when I can’t log in (stating who I am in the body of the message, of course), my messages still can’t get through
That’s really weird. I tried test comments signed in and as anonymous, and both worked, so I don’t know what to tell you.
Maybe someone else could try commenting, and let us know what happens.
Wow, I didn’t know the deadline was so close. I guess I should post that.
Katharine and Mariella,
I registered too. Glad I saw this and thanks for posting the link Katharine.
I decided to enter in the contest as well. I have been wanting to stir up some creative fiction and learn some more of that aspect of writing as well.
It’s only 2.00 to enter, not to mention a great site! The conference starts Oct. 8th and lasts until the 14th. I am really looking forward to it!
I tried to submit a comment and got the “moderator enabled” like Mariella recieved. Katharine did you recieve the comment to moderate it?
No, I didn’t. Very weird, because I did receive a comment from another writer just half an hour ago.
Odd.
Hmmmm. I put in as anonymous but had my name in it. I tried.
Well, thanks anyway.
I have no idea what to do about it, so I’m hoping it’s a temporary Blogger malfunction. Does one of you mind trying again later today?
If the problem persists, I guess I’ll just have to turn off comment moderation…
Katharine’s blog doesn’t like us, MIcah.
Yay! That means we’re all in it together
I didn’t see the fiction contest though. But I’m already preparing for other contests so I guess it’s all right.
Sure I’ll try later Katharine.
It’s going to be great conference and even better knowing you two will be there.
Just click on the contests button on the webpage and it will explain the details. Registration ends Nov. 15th for that so time is left for that.
Have both of you received the workshop schedules? What are you thinking of signing up for? And how much?
I’m thinking of taking the week off of work, but I’m still not sure how many workshops I can handle at once. I’m having to restrain myself from signing up for 4 or more every day.
No I have not recieved it yet. I’m going to wait to decide for sure but let me know which ones you will be. I don’t know how many I can handle at once either. Are you going to sign up for the contest Katharine? It looks like a great deal of fun.
I hadn’t looked at it yet, but it does look interesting. Unfortunately, I’m also doing NaNoWriMo this year, which is in November. I’ll have to think about the contest — not sure how much I want to put on my plate.
I haven’t decided for sure yet what workshops I’m doing, but I’ll let you know when I do!
I have only received the confirmation email as of now. Still waiting for the schedule. I think I can take off of work for a week, granted no rush job come in. That means I have to work doubly hard the week before to be able to cover for the next.
MIcah>> I can’t find the info on the $2 entry fee. Isn’t it free?
Katharine and Micah>> I found the page with the conference sched. I think I’m going to sign up for:
Well…I was going to list them here, but it seems like I want to sign up for everything!
Katharine, I’m also doing NaNoWriMo this year! Actually, I was supposed to do it last year, but got caugh up in my own affairs.