Jun 18, 2026 · 44 min · 18 segments
Designing a functional and beautiful home office starts with the right foundation. In this episode of Dear Alice, we share our best home office design ideas, including space planning tips, built-in…
Suzanne HallHostJessica BennettHostCoreyPanelistRowan asked, "I'd love a deep dive on where to start with offices, how you decide what to put in them, and for a practical small room to be glamorous and efficient, not just for show.
You gotta put paper, pens, notebooks, whiteboards, cork boards, your vision board, and inspirational messages somewhere."
As we thought about where we would start with the office, and looked through our portfolio of images and offices that we've designed, there are three things that we pay attention to, the first being the function.
So how do you actually think about what do you need, how do you need it to function, and how do you space plan all those things, right? Second is the feeling.
Everybody, when you're going into any space that you're gonna actually invest in, put money into, you want it to have a feeling, especially when you're thinking about a space when you're gonna go work.
Whether you're working full time in this office or whether it's just a place to escape the kids or anything, to actually get something done, we want to have a feeling-
so that we can actually be pr- productive, and we're gonna enjoy being in there.
... versus the whole family room, or the whole kids' rooms or anything, 'cause you want it to inspire you to be and do your best work.
Mm-hmm.
And I actually think the home office should feel different than the rest of the house.
It will signal to your brain when you're going in there that you're going into work mode, or even more important, when you're done for the day-
Rowan asked, "I'd love a deep dive on where to start with offices, how you decide what to put in them, and for a practical small room to be glamorous and efficient, not just for show.
You gotta put paper, pens, notebooks, whiteboards, cork boards, your vision board, and inspirational messages somewhere."
As we thought about where we would start with the office, and looked through our portfolio of images and offices that we've designed, there are three things that we pay attention to, the first being the function.
So how do you actually think about what do you need, how do you need it to function, and how do you space plan all those things, right? Second is the feeling.
Everybody, when you're going into any space that you're gonna actually invest in, put money into, you want it to have a feeling, especially when you're thinking about a space when you're gonna go work.
Whether you're working full time in this office or whether it's just a place to escape the kids or anything, to actually get something done, we want to have a feeling-
so that we can actually be pr- productive, and we're gonna enjoy being in there.
... versus the whole family room, or the whole kids' rooms or anything, 'cause you want it to inspire you to be and do your best work.
Mm-hmm.
And I actually think the home office should feel different than the rest of the house.
It will signal to your brain when you're going in there that you're going into work mode, or even more important, when you're done for the day-
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