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Working in the Countryside
The Home Office
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Introduction The Home Office The Farm Shop Pick Your Own The Farm Park Bed and Breakfast Organic Production The Farmer's Market Rare Breeds Marketing Regulations |
A converted outbuilding, spare room or even a shed can be used as an office, as long as it provides warmth, light, comfort and access to electricity and telephone lines. There are companies who manufacture garden buildings for use in this way, while others specialise in converting existing areas.
A working area needs to be big enough to allow for a variety of activities such as reading, writing, keying in, telephoning, as well as relaxing and thinking. Environment is important! Walls that are painted in light enhancing and pale, matt colours provide soft, clean lines without being soporific. Pictures and photographs on the walls add to the congeniality, while plants, in my view, are essential in any room.
A big notice board on which to stick reminders and Post-it Notes is helpful, while a calendar with large numbers is also useful. Natural light from a window is essential, but that can be a nuisance when it falls on a computer monitor. A blind with vertical slats is more effective than an up-down blind or a curtain because it diffuses the light rather than excludes it. Essential equipment includes a desk, chair, table, a computer with printer and modem, telephone, fax, filing cabinet and waste paper basket.
To these I would add a bookcase, armchair with footrest and coffee table, not to mention tea and coffee making facilities. A plain paper copier may not be essential, particularly if you have a low-cost copying facility locally, but it is extremely useful if you need to produce copies in a hurry, or in bulk. Small, personal copiers are now available or a fax can be used to produce individual copies. A scanner with optical character recognition (OCR) software is most useful for scanning in documents and helping to control the flow of paperwork.
Perhaps most important of all, is to have an effective internet connection so that E-mails can be sent all over the world for the cost of a local telephone call. A broadband connection is ideal for speed and economy, with just one monthly payment and no extras regardless of how long you are on-line. The worldwide web is an amazing source of information and contacts, as long as the search engines are used to select only those sites that are relevant. (It pays to have software to filter out unsolicited communications or dubious websites).
Finally, having one’s own website is important in providing a shop-window, but buying and selling by credit card over the internet is only feasible if secure server facilities are available.
Copyright © Katie Thear 2005