- Good morning good life,
Welcome back to Amy TV where we come together
to help you go after the life you want.
I am so excited for this,
I am in my new home.
If you haven't heard, recently,
maybe you haven't seen my empty home tour yet,
my husband and I just moved to South Florida
and we're beginning the whole process now
of what it means to settle down
and make this place our own.
And if you know me, you know what that means,
we need a new home office.
You have seen so many different home office setups from me
over the last decade on this channel,
and through that time, I've gotten a lot of questions
about how I set it up, where'd I get my bookcases,
where do I buy my desks?
How do I figure out how to decorate?
Just all the different things that we think about
a lot more lately as some of us are working from home,
or at least creating a space at home
where we can focus for certain purposes, such as work.
So I thought since I'm starting so fresh,
like usually I don't even start this fresh,
I will move things in before I'm ready to even work there.
But this is like a proper starting from scratch moment
for me when it comes to my home office,
and I'm going to take you through the whole process,
not just today, this is the beginning of a series.
And I'm very excited about that
because you really get to see how this all works in my brain
and then comes to life.
Starting with this episode,
I'm going to be walking you through,
how do I decide what goes in a home office?
How do I design it?
How do I buy things for it?
And not only for the purpose of focusing for work,
but to be able to create content as well.
You are fully aware that because I love to make content
for this channel, I don't just work in my office,
I film in my office, I record podcasts in my office,
so there's a lot of things that this one room
needs to accomplish for me to be at my most efficient
and productive self when I'm in there.
So I'm going to show you how I make that happen
so I can create a safe space for me and my work.
Okay, here's the first thing that we have to do,
before we can go scope out the room,
which we're about to do in a little bit,
before we can start shopping online,
before we can start looking on Pinterest
for different ideas,
we have to get to the heart
of what the purpose of this room is.
And everyone is different,
like I said, I do lots of different things
in my home office,
maybe you just do one specific type of thing in that office,
even better.
The more you can focus, the better.
But before we can start to design anything,
we need to know what our top priorities are.
When I think about my home office top priorities,
it's about what does it need to do for me
so that I am the most focused and efficient
at getting my work done.
So, my top priorities for an office are pretty simple,
but can be very interesting from a design standpoint,
which we will get to.
The first and probably top, top priority
is a desk space for a desktop computer.
I like to do some video editing
and I need a really great device to do that.
So I've got to have a desk for it,
it's gotta be there, it's really important to me,
that's a top priority.
Another top priority is that I don't just work
in this office, but then I film videos in this office,
so, the space needs to be clean, it needs to be inviting,
it needs to be bright, it needs to be airy,
all of the things that I would want someone to feel
when they're watching one of my videos.
So it's gotta be aesthetically pleasing,
not just because it's gonna be on camera,
but because it makes me feel good
when I'm working in there as well.
And my final top priority is being able to record podcasts.
This is less of an aesthetic issue
and more of a sound issue.
We wanna make sure that wherever I've got my mic set up,
I'm pretty able to control the sound,
it's not a lot of echo,
which this video might be a little echo-y,
but, that's life for me right now.
But when I record a podcast,
the sound quality has to be excellent.
So having the carpeted space is going to be a great start,
but if I can do anything else to be able to keep that sound
at a very high quality level,
then we have got a very high operational home office for me
in my line of work.
Kind of on the secondary priority is a second filming place.
Typically, I will film just sitting in front of my desk,
that's very likely to be the case,
and that will be my top priority.
But if I can have a change of scenery
and still be in the same room,
I would love to make that happen.
So that could be something like a corner cozy chair,
or it could be something else entirely,
we'll figure it out in the design process.
But in the back of my mind, not a top priority,
maybe down the road may not be right away,
is going to have a second option for a place to film.
So those are my top priorities,
and now we are going to go up to the office
so I can kind of walk you through
when you have an extra room that you have to work with,
all of the different things that I take into consideration
when I am planning the layout of the room,
how I'm going to be able to film in different places,
where my desk is gonna get set up and things like that.
But before we can go into my home office
masterminding design process,
I have to share with you how I've been able to get through
without a home office for the last number of months,
and that is all thanks to the sponsor of this episode
of Amy TV, and that is the Logitech Combo Touch.
This fabulous device is so much more than meets the eye.
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And you know we love to go late sometimes,
we probably shouldn't,
we need to make sure we have work-life balance,
but when we do, the auto adjusting backlit keyboard
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for all the inspiration I need to design my new home,
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Okay, let's head upstairs to my third bedroom,
which is the room I've decided
is going to be my home office,
which we will be designing in this series.
Welcome to my potential home office.
So I don't wanna get you too dizzy,
I'm gonna go as slow as I possibly can.
But I just want to show you every aspect of this room,
all four walls, so that you can see what I'm working with.
I'm standing at the door right now,
which I'll show you in a second,
and straight ahead is this beautiful window, which is great.
The light in here is really, really good,
which we can be very grateful for when we make videos,
right?
So now I'm just gonna turn a little bit
so you can see where I came from.
And on this wall, there's a closet and the entry door.
So a couple of things to take into consideration here,
one idea for placing your desk
could be to put it right in front of that window.
And the reason why that would be a great idea
is because if you are taking a lot of zoom calls
and you find that you're constantly concerned
about your video and making sure that you look on point,
then you might wanna sit in front of a window,
because if your computer is also sitting on a desk
in front of that window,
you're going to have the best possible natural lighting
for any video calls.
This is something I do consider,
it is not the end all be all for me,
but for people who are reporting to someone
and really wanna put their best foot forward
whenever they are taking a call
and presenting themselves in the best light,
no pun intended,
then this is a great option.
The reason why I don't think I'm going to do that,
although I have considered it is for two reasons,
one, putting my desk over there
means that I would face this direction
when I am filming a video.
Usually, the camera will sit in the middle of the room
and it will be turned toward me and my desk.
The problem with that is that the best lighting I get
is then behind me,
and I'm not going to be able to make the best possible
naturally lit videos.
Natural light can be challenging with video,
in the first place spot, if we need it, we need it, right?
And I kinda need it in this situation.
So I'm not going to be best served most of the time
facing the window
because most of the time I turn around and I face a camera,
and then I end up being backlit.
I also don't really like the idea of this
being my background,
because it's just sort of a mundane closet.
So it's not really appealing to me.
So that means that my options are best off this wall
or the one that's behind me right now.
The one that's behind me
is probably not going to be the best
because it's also in the direct track of the entry door.
And anytime you put something in the way of the entry door,
first of all, it's the first thing you see when you walk in,
and that means it's already a barrier to entry,
the moment you walk in.
Whereas if this space is mostly cleared,
it feels really nice when you enter the room,
and then you see what will hopefully be on this wall.
So, I've pretty much decided that my desk needs to go here,
my computer will be against the wall,
and I'll be able to turn my chair around to a camera,
probably set up in the middle of the room
to make video upon need.
My fun little free chair over here, my little pillow
is kind of representative of that second priority
filming spot at some point,
I think it would go great in a corner of a room,
but based on the fact that I want to put a desk over here,
it doesn't really make sense for there to also be a chair
on that same wall, it'll be a little bit too cluttered.
But I think it would look really nice in that corner
when we're able to get to second priority stuff,
especially with these beautiful Southern Shutters,
they will look really, really nice
if I'm shooting in that corner
to kind of have some flavor of the room in there as well.
I wanna give a quick shout out to something weird. (laughs)
One idea to consider if you're still finding
that you would like to face a window,
but you're dealing with the same conundrum that I am here,
there's definitely the option of forgetting this closet
exists altogether and turning it into your desk space.
It saves a lot of real estate space in this room
if it needs to serve for many multiple purposes,
like if this room isn't gonna be just a home office for you,
it's gotta be something else as well,
maybe it's a home office for multiple people.
You could take these doors out and use that space
depending on how your closet is.
Mine's just pretty cut and dry.
It's the doors and the racks.
If you took all of that out,
you could just make that kind of a nook for your desk.
And I wanna point that out
because a lot of people don't even consider that.
But, if you don't need the closet
and you don't wanna just clutter it up,
which quite frankly, I have at this point,
I would clean it out first,
but I'm not gonna bore you
with what it looks like right now.
You could take these doors off
and totally make that a great space for your desk.
A neighbor of mine has done this
and they called a closet company to design it,
and I thought that was an excellent idea.
The reason I'm also pointing it out
is I think that's a perfect opportunity
if filming or excuse me,
if recording my podcast at my desk
isn't the best possible sound quality,
I could probably put a little podcasting cubby
in that closet space, maybe without even removing the doors.
But if somebody wanted to do the same thing
and put a desk in there,
get those doors out of the way,
pop a desk in there and that's a great idea,
you still have the rest of this room to work with
if you need additional space.
I'm giving that as an option for you
'cause I'm considering it.
But I know a lot of people are working with
as much space as they possibly can come up with,
so it's possible to make this room
more than just someone's home office
if you need more space for different things
and just more flexibility than that.
You can still give yourself that dedicated space,
it's possible.
But we don't have to lock ourselves in a closet
if we just take those doors off,
which you know is very possible
with sliding doors like these, so.
I'm pretty sure we're gonna end up here for our desk
and additional really just desk work and filming setup,
so far, that seems to be the best option,
and I think that's what we're going to be planning for.
Okay, so I have a pretty rough idea of what I want here.
There is some flexibility, we can move some things around.
But what I'm going to do is take measurements
of everything in the room where I think the larger furniture
can go, so I can make sure that I shop for something
that fits in that space
and is not going to overtake the entire room.
And I've already started to go a little crazy on this,
but who doesn't?
I am going to now be sitting down
and a little bit more seriously,
be able to go through my vision board
of different inspo photos on Pinterest,
look at all the different ideas that I've liked so far,
things that could definitely work
now that I know what I'm working with in this room,
and really try to pay attention to not just layout,
but colors and different themes
for how I want this office to look.
Like I said before, bright and airy,
probably a lot of white,
maybe a little bit of my signature pink.
And I'm feeling that the design of the overall home
is going to be a bit warmer,
so where I used to go typically toward grays and silvers,
I'll probably looking more toward slight orange pinky shades
as well as gold.
So I'm gonna be looking for that type of furniture
on Pinterest when I am pinning new ideas
or looking at previous ideas
that I have added to my vision space.
And we need to get really focused
when it comes to spending money on this space.
Everyone has their own budget,
but more importantly than just budget,
we can go crazy with decor and lots of different ideas,
especially when we see a Pinterest inspo and we're like,
I just want that room, let's recreate it.
What we need to do is just create a list.
I'm gonna create a list of the most top priorities
for the room that I need.
Sure, I would love it to look fabulous immediately,
but, we have to start with something as simple as a desk.
And if we have a desk, I'm gonna need a chair.
And probably the most I'm going to expand on furniture
beyond that is a couple of bookcases
because it's what I'm known for,
and quite frankly, it fills a room really nicely
and adds a little bit of flare if you are filming video.
If I have these basics,
I know I can do everything on my top priority list.
And once we've done that, we can start to live in the room,
use the room and then decide where we go from there.
Do we continue to expand on furniture?
Is there no need for additional furniture?
Do we just start looking at a couple more decor ideas?
It's all one step at a time.
And I realized that if you get too ambitious
at the beginning and just buy a bunch of stuff,
you really regret some of those purchases later
because you didn't just use it for a little while,
and live in it first to make sure it works well for you.
Lucky for me, I've had quite a few home offices,
so I know what my basics are.
I've already got a computer on the way,
I am going to get a couple of other items ordered.
They're gonna take some time,
it's an interesting moment for furniture and shipping
and things like that.
So it's definitely something I wanna get on top of now
so I have an office in the somewhat near future.
But as soon as I do get a couple of those first pieces
and start mapping them out in the room,
I am going to make the next episode of this series,
which I really, really hope you'll subscribe to this channel
so that you don't miss that.
Thank you to everyone who's tuning in
and finds these kinds of things really interesting,
I know this is one of my favorite things to do.
If you ask my family way back when I was a kid,
for fun, I would rearrange my bedroom like regularly.
(laughs)
It was just something I enjoyed,
it made it feel fresh,
It made it feel different,
and I love doing that now as an adult as well.
So, enjoy the process with me.
Thank you so much to the sponsor of this episode
of Amy TV, that's our friends at Logitech Combo Touch,
I am loving this device because it is making me use my iPad
to the greatest of my ability
instead of just every once in a while,
and is definitely much better on the go,
which I currently am.
See, this is my current home office, it's the kitchen.
(laughs)
That's all for today.
Thank you so much for tuning in, I appreciate it as always.
Remember, subscribe for good vibes,
kiss the ones you love,
and go after the life you want.
I'll see you on the next one.
Cheers.
(upbeat music)