Steel Lighting for a Productive Home Office

If there’s one thing that’s grown in the past year due to the pandemic, it’s the rise of the home office. Nowadays, it’s more important than ever to have a space in the home that you can do some much-needed work in. 

Home offices are arguably one of the most essential additions to the modern home. While open-plan living has been all the rage for the past few years, the home office runs against this trend. People worldwide have increasingly needed a separate space to do their work remotely while also maintaining an air of professionalism in the process. 

You don’t need to read any of the many articles in the news of people getting themselves in all sorts of trouble because of their inability to use Zoom or Skype effectively when working remotely to know that investing in a home office is a wise decision for modern homeowners. Even with digital backgrounds, it feels pretty important to have a professional backing to your own workspace, and a home office can be just that. 

With the rise of home offices has come the need to address the issue of adequate lighting effectively. While it seems tempting to keep things minimalistic and allow the pale blue light of your laptop to be your primary light source, there’s plenty of science behind the idea that you should have a home office as well-lit as possible. 

In this guide, we’re going to help all of you budding remote workers with an excellent overview of the most important things to consider when making your own home office and the lighting required to maximize your space. 

So read on, and discover what’s possible with steel lighting!

Act Natural

The most important light source in the home is the one that’s outside of your house – the sun. Daylight is a vital light source for humans and contributes positively to your mental and physical health. 

There’s a reason that most commercial buildings and offices have large windows – because it works wonders for employees. Recent studies have shown that having an abundance of natural light in a business vastly improves worker satisfaction and productivity. 

Natural light also does wonders for us biologically, with our natural circadian rhythms being deeply dependant on daylight to regulate our body clocks, leading to better maintenance of the body as a whole.

Natural light also works on a mental level as well, with those that work primarily in natural light have better moods, reduce eyestrain, make fewer mistakes, and feel less drowsy. This was proven in a study on the long-term effects of dark conditions on researchers in Antarctica, where daylight can recede for weeks at a time. The study found that those that worked during these darker periods of the year made more mistakes in the lab, had trouble following directions, and forgot instructions and routines more quickly than researchers who worked surrounded by daylight. 

In the home office, investing in large windows that allow plenty of sunlight to enter the space is crucial. Positioning your desk and chair to reduce glare while maximizing light exposure can also be hugely beneficial in the long term. 

Flexibility is Your Friend

We get it; the most challenging part of remote work and having a home office is how strangely boring it is. Sure, work is boring for many people, but at least you can change your environment every once in a while and talk to your work friends at the same time to break up the day. 

At a home office, this isn’t quite as feasible. Thankfully, the easiest way to deal with this is to try and match your lighting to the conditions of the day. As the day goes on, your lighting should change as well. 

The easiest way to implement this is by layering your lighting setup and changing your lighting arrangement as the day progresses. For many light fixtures, automatic changes can be made so that your lighting can become fluid without your input. 

At Steel Lighting Co., we have lighting sensor options available for our units, making it easy to have a light that conserves power while also reducing its output once the surrounding light of the day changes as well. 

Indirectly Speaking

For the office, having focused lighting fixtures is going to be a problem. You don’t want to feel like you’re under a spotlight all day, nor do you want any harsh shadows to interrupt your flow or create a dark corner in your office. 

To achieve the ultimate home-office aesthetic, be sure to keep your best light sources diffused by having them as indirect as possible. The best light for working at home is the type that keeps things visible while also avoiding as much glare as possible. Indirect fixtures, such as our Venice wall fixture, are perfect for diffusing light and creating a soothing atmosphere.

Use an Accent

We’ve discussed the importance of the three lighting styles and how layering these styles can lead to some pretty incredible results for just about any space. While it’s obvious how crucial ambient light and task lighting will be for the home office, it’s less so for accent lighting. 

While it makes sense to put less emphasis on accent lighting, it is something to consider if you want to have a complete experience. After all, the home office is a room, and like all rooms, a bit of character and style never hurts. 

Accent lighting draws attention to the parts of the space that make the room your own and reflect the personality of whoever is inside. While we make many comparisons between the home office and the offices in commercial buildings, the nature of accent lighting is a crucial difference. Accent lighting is a personal touch to a space you would not have in a commercial setting, so using it in a home office is vital!

And that’s it for this guide on how to maximize your home office!

If you need help making the right choice of lighting for your home or business, then contact our friendly team at Steel Lighting Co.,  our friendly team of experts would be more than happy to give some advice and recommendations on what kind of steel barn light can best suit your home or business needs.