Welcome Wednesday: What’s your ideal office setup?

[Monique vdB]

Hi everyone, and welcome to Welcome Wednesday!

Over 33,000 people join our community each and every week, and we love when they stop by the Welcome Center to ask us questions, or say hello and tell us a bit about themselves.

We’re tagging just a few of our favorite new users this week to answer our question of the week, but we’d love to hear from all of you!

What is your ideal office setup and why?

Mine would be a private home office with wall-to-wall bookshelves and a view of the ocean where I could work remotely. I’d rather work remotely than work in an office, and I love the ocean so that sounds like heaven to me. Specifically, anywhere along the coast of the Pacific Northwest or Ireland. A rocky coastline. Aaaah. 

So there’s my answer: what about you? If you’re tagged in the comments, or just want to play along, please jump in!

[Monique vdB]

Hello there to @Mikkel Lindemark , @Иван Лунегов , @Archana V , @Mark Sliwinski , @Xavier Roy , @Ravali P A , @Elena Radu , @senseishokai , @sinku252 , @Dan Storbaek , @Eda Bahar , @Raghavendra , @Renee , @Srikanth , @Christopher Chestnut , @Daniels , @Kevin Cole @Mukund Waghmode , @Priya Mehra , @rebeccarodriguez , @Steeve Christen , @Sylvain BONNEFON , @Vladimir Bondarev , @amoiz , @Basar Beykoz @CGedeus , @Chris James , @Christoph Brejla , @Daniel Keebler , @Evgeny , @Jens Schöbel , @Ketevan , @lucas_santos , @Makenna Barton , @Melissa Alcalde , @Pat Wells , @Pham Thanh , @Randy Pringle , @Sara Morgado , @Stefan Riethmann , @tomasz.malec , @Zachary Singh , @Александр Сергеевич Папок , @Abhishek Kannan , @YÇM Mimari , @andy_smith , @Barry Halim  and @Bart Louwers ...... and welcome to the community! We’d love for you to tell us your ideal office setup, or just jump in and say hello!

[Brad Harris]

Remote home office is what I have currently available for use... 

I'm ready to work with teams on projects. 

[Monique vdB]

@Brad Harris yep, luckily there are lot of tools that help make remote work possible!  We have some good community content about that too. 

[Monique vdB]

And here are a few more people we'd love to hear from this week, even if you just feel like saying hi!

@Benjamin Ruggaber , @Bharat Singh Shekhawat , @Caitlin Kliesmet , @Clecio Antao , @David Petrík , @Developer UPT PTIK , @Ejaz Salim 21 , @[deleted] , @Karen Kapler , @Marcos Gonzalez , @Michael O_Pry , @Paul Vytas , @roshy45 , @Sarah Buschermoehle , @Scot Michael Hirschman , @Shirley Song , @Stuti Thapliyal , @Viktor Leandersson , @Alain Ingles , @Alessandro Cnapich , @Andrew Hershy , @Arief Taufik Hidayat , @Carla Ruhl , @Catt Zheng , @Christian Salmon , @Dao Ng , @Dianne F , @Dimones , @Eli Black , @Gaming IT , @Heinz-Peter Liechtenecker , @Heriberto Carmona , @john.tran , @Joyjeet Nag , @Keirstin Roach , @maksim.bugai , @Martial Goeh Akue , @Mason Shea , @Padmini Narasimhamurthy , @Pat Trainor , @Rick Cottle , @Rob Farkas , @Shankar K_ , @SmokeyTheBandit , @sreekumarh , @Swapnil Jaiswal , @Tarokh Taefi II , @Thomas Borzecki  and @Сергей Балахонов ! Welcome, friends!

[Christian Salmon]

Hi and thanks for the call out

My ideal office has a stand up desk, a meeting table with comfortable chairs for small one to one meetings, great audio and visual set up that can easily be used for video conferencing. A great view of nature would be nice with good lightin. Someone to come and clean it would be awesome! I'd have plenty of cool art from peers on the wall and plants. 

[Monique vdB]

@Christian Salmon welcome to the community! Good one, I would also need someone to clean (and probably also someone who can keep my plants alive). What kind of art do you have on your walls right now? I have a bit of an art "problem" in that I can't stop buying it even though I have a small house and way more art than I can ever hang at once. Opposite my home office (aka a chair in my living room) I have two abstract watercolors and three prints from this series.

[Samie Kaufman - Your Gal at Gliffy]

Oooo, I love this question!

I'm on the fence about working remotely vs. in an office still, but if I were to design a home office right now, its key features would be a series of locking doors or eject functionality to a) make sure I don't sign in too early, b) keep my boyfriend out while I'm trying to focus, and c) kick me out at a reasonable time. :)

I think my company is doing a really good job giving us space and encouraging us to step away, but I have a hard time doing yoga 10ft from my desk each morning. I get distracted wondering what's on my work email... 

Also, more plants!!

[Monique vdB]

@Samie Kaufman - Your Gal at Gliffy I too long for a home office. I work from the living room because we have a small house and my husband and kid are both home all the time now.

My husband turned a shed in the backyard into an office and I'm kind of jealous of his setup! But I could have done this at any point in the past 7 years when I worked from home and he didn't. Oh well!

[Samie Kaufman - Your Gal at Gliffy]

A backyard shed sounds pretty great. (A backyard sounds pretty great...) ;) 

I'm also in the living room! I made it about 2 months without a proper desk or any monitors, sitting at the counter on a barstool, but at least I'm set up with a real desk now.

[Johnny O Manns]

I like working remotely from home, but I prefer an open space office with a beautiful view, where there are lots of plants, interesting art and no cubical walls.  It has pods containing from one to four tables where staff can work alone or in a cluster.  The office space has adjoining meeting rooms, is in a building containing multiple options for eating, and there's both inside and outside space for exercising/walking/sitting.  

[Monique vdB]

@Johnny O Manns I never thought I would miss an open plan office but I really kind of do miss the San Francisco Atlassian office! It helps that it's a really great space, but I especially miss our kitchen with fresh berries every morning. Instead I have to do things like "buy my own fruit" instead of having it magically appear.

Your description sounds lovely. 

[Kat Warner]

How is it that the fruit in the office fruit bowl is almost always great to eat for a week but anything I buy myself is not ripe enough or too ripe unless I happen to look at the fruit in the magic hour (I guess) of perfect ripeness.

[BiancaE]

ah! I've been day dreaming about this a lot lately as we try to figure out if we should move. My dream office would have LOTs of natural light! I want it to be moody though - bold, dark, rich colors, and maybe even a fireplace. It would have a nice desk set up and wood floor with a Moroccan rug, with a few hanging plants (not sure if that would work with a fireplace... 🤔) and nice couch so I could jump between desk/couch. Maybe starting with something like this:

[Monique vdB]

Ugh those bookshelves and a reading nook! It looks so cozy (although I feel like in practice it would be uncomfortable). I like the combo of dark colors and lots of natural light. 

This is the kind of thing that makes me want to move out of the Bay Area where I could potentially afford this. Go live the dream, B! 

[Samie Kaufman - Your Gal at Gliffy]

This looks heavenly!!!

[Bridget]

Oh, a coastline sounds nice!!! 

For me, I'd love to be in a comfy a-frame house in the forest somewhere in Oregon. Preferably with a wood fire and a wine cellar ;). I love atmospheric weather, especially combined with greenery! 

[Monique vdB]

Yes I want to live in the Olympic National Forest but like, on a cliff overlooking the sea. 

[Stephanie Grice]

obvi like

[Esme Crutchley]

What a great question!

I'd love to go minimalist on the furniture, all in white. Nice and clean lines, really functional. With maybe an accent chair, in a royal blue or emerald green, a really dark and opulent colour.

It would be really stark...but then...dun dun dun...lots of shelves for orchids of all colours!

Gotta have orchids for this girl!

[Monique vdB]

I love the idea of this minimalist space with all the pops of color! Sounds amazing!

[Sharon Tan]

Welcome, everyone! Ooo love me some office setups. I have been frequenting Apartment Therapy for inspiration but I realized I am drawn to lots of COLOR and PLANTS 🌱

Must-haves for me are a very clean desk, temps ideally somewhere between 75-78F (just warm enough to not need a sweater but not too warm that I get sleepy), proximity to snacks, a scenic view (enjoying the bird feeder right outside my window), and a nice comfy rug for my pup to nap while I work. A candle if it's overcast outside is nice too :) 

[Monique vdB]

@Sharon Tan I forgot the array of bird feeders I will have at my coastal office! Of course! That sounds lovely (but too warm for me, I will keep my office at 70). 

[Loren Siegel]

I've been missing the office a lot lately, so my ideal office set-up would be very similar to the Austin Atlassian office, but in addition to the open floor plan, I would like to have some quiet space similar to what I have at home currently. I also love having my cat around...so maybe we start introducing office cats? I would also love for the space to be filled with green plants and huge panoramic windows overlooking an ocean. I would be able to walk onto a balcony and hear the waves and smell the sea air. Finally, the office would be stocked with all of my favorite snacks. 

[Monique vdB]

@Loren Siegel Atlassian + cats sounds pretty awesome. But would they get into fights with the Atlassian dogs? We might need dedicated floors for each. And a pet-free allergy floor. All in our building overlooking the sea. 

[Thomas Borzecki]

I've been working from home since our lockdown began in March.  My home is a townhouse that's completely finished inside, with the exception of one room in the basement and the laundry room. When we first moved in I claimed the unfinished room as my "man cave", or as I like to refer to it- the "Nerd Bunker" and have been renovating it bit by bit since then. 

Over the course of the lockdown I have been using whatever I had on hand, plus some purchases to make this into a workspace for work, but also a place where I can pursue my many hobbies in the off-hours. It's not perfect, but I'm pretty happy with it- it's become a comfortable place to work and I have many more plans for it.

If we're talking about an absolutely hypothetical ideal workspace, I always had this crazy dream of running a software development company entirely contained within a tall ship or some kind of large yacht.  

Imagine, working in your personal office quarters- going to top deck for lunch and a swim.  Sailing to international client meetings and taking breaks at various beaches along the way.  All you need is a solid satellite internet connection and some good solar panels on the ship for endless power.  Elon Musk's StarLink Satellites are gonna make this dream even more possible :)

I'm sure you'd have to think about things like tropical storms and pirates, but imagine the stories you would have after a few years working like that :)

[Monique vdB]

@Thomas Borzecki lol the "nerd bunker" that's awesome. My husband is working out of a shed in the backyard and I call it his "she shed" just because it's fun to say. But we're definitely doing a lot more home improvements now that we're stuck here all the time. 

Important question for your future software company: do you listen to yacht rock? Because that seems like a must. 

[Emila Lowas]

It's a connection with Toy Story, which became my preferred movie. First I concept of Woody, however as Woody is a for cat guide, I believe a extra brownish canine.