Is Time For You To Ditch The Home Office?

I’ve been battling some very dark thoughts lately.

Nah, I haven’t been hatching a diabolical plot involving international espionage nor am I thinking of embarking on a crime spree (I’ll let our free spending politicians do that), rather I’ve been giving serious thought to ditching my home office. Yes, after nearly seven years of working from home in either a poorly heated and damp basement (when we lived in NJ) to the spare bedroom in our NC home, I’m thinking the time to move up and out is at hand.

Giving The Kids Some Room

Of course, an important part of that reason is needing to give my office to one of our boys so that he can be free of his brother, but that isn’t the only reason – I crave solitude, especially when I am writing and am finding it increasingly difficult to do that at home.

You see, it isn’t just the family (and our cats) who are hanging around but there are neighbors, sales people even daytime visits from Jehovah’s Witnesses who are intruding on my peace. Just like the good ‘ole days when people were actually home during the day I’ve learned that this phenomenon is very much alive and kicking – people can be found at home during traditional working hours at least where I live.

Look, Madge, He Must Be Out Of Work

Some of this is my fault because I’ve been known to either take a nice long walk during the middle of the day or bring out the lawn mower or leaf blower to do some yard work. By all appearances I’m either retired or unemployed, so I must have time on my hand, right? Yikes, no.

I started to check out the local real estate theme late last year, visiting Craigslist about once a day to see what was posted. Commercial rent prices in the Raleigh area vary widely with the prime locations downtime or in nicely landscaped office parks charging a mint while some smaller, out of the way offices are going for a song.

One of the best arrangements I’ve seen so far are those professional office suites where the lessee would like to sublet a room to one working professional (that’s me!) at a price that is $300 or less per month. Yes, and some of these locations are quite nice with central heat/air, internet connection and all utilities included. With a private room I can sequester myself deep in the bowels of an office, coming out from time to time to have human contact which I don’t get working at home.

Yes, the occasional phone conversation is nice and social media allows me to stay connected, but that only goes so far – who the heck are you people on Facebook, StumbleUpon, Twitter, Digg et al anyway? Hmmm?

The Garage Looks Nice

But don’t count on me leaving home just yet – just when I think about making the move, a client halves my work citing the economy or some other project comes to an end. When that happens, I have to quickly redouble my effort to make up for loss income which means if I have another monthly bill to pay, then things become a little bit tighter.

Gee, you think that unused garage space could be converted to an office instead?

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