Designing a Home Office

[Mtneer]

If you'll be spending time on video calls, design a good lighting and sound system. Some easy, inexpensive additions can greatly improve your professional look.

For the main light, use a 10" ring light made for cell phones but place it at eye level off to the side at about 2 or 10 o'clock if the camera is at 12. Then have a small LED panel on the opposite side, dialed down to 50%. For an extra touch, place another LED panel at 5 o'clock (if ring is at 2) but about 2 feet higher aimed at the back of your head and dialed up to 200% (bigger panel). If you have a good background, a fourth light on that might be nice but can also be distracting; avoid a busy background that will distract viewers.

For sound, use any standalone mic. One sitting on your desk will sound way better than whatever is built in to the computer or camera. Agree with others about adding insulation inside walls and ceiling while you have the chance. Also consider that bare walls in an empty room tend to be echoey so adding furniture and stuff can help.

[def90]

Wet bar, kegerator, wine cellar, nice comfy lazy boy, cigar exhaust fan, 75 inch TV.. Let's face it, this will end up becoming the man cave anyway.

[ray1970]

Wet bar, kegerator, wine cellar, nice comfy lazy boy, cigar exhaust fan, 75 inch TV.. Let's face it, this will end up becoming the man cave anyway.

Like.

[Little Dutch]

You know you could have gotten +90% of this achieved with Windows 10 Pro RDP and zero dollars, right?

If only.

[Little Dutch]

If he doesn't have pro, it's not zero dollars...

Ive got an msdn, so no problems there. The point was/is to keep my home stuff completely separate from my work stuff, but still use the same peripherals.

Zero chance I'll be accessing my stuff with hardware that is owned by the company.

[Irving]

Allocate as much square footage for your home office as possible, for tax reasons. The entertainment area can be the waiting room, and the kitchenette can be the break room.

[Gman]

If he doesn't have pro, it's not zero dollars...

If you know someone that can give you a friends and family discount invite to the Microsoft Store, it's $35.

I had a TechNet subscription when that was a thing. As a result, I have 10 retail license keys for Windows 7 Ultimate. Those keys are valid for a free Windows 10 Pro upgrade.

ETA: I totally get wanting to keep what's yours and what's for business separate.

[Mazin]

https://brytesoft.com/windows-10-pro.html

I have this on 5 machines, this is limited to the machine only but for sub $40 you can't beat it

[bradbn4]

I went with a 32" 4k display; set of good external speakers along with a nice mic for conference calls.
Also keep a nice electric tea kettle when I want to change from coffee to tea or hot cocoa.

Good lighting helps, and I find a NAS useful on a secondary computer so I can play tunes and use it for training video's.

I maintain backup copies of my work on a office approved external drive so I don't have to worry about lag time on the network for backups.

[bradbn4]

The last must have upgrade I did for my basement work area was to add a quality office chair. It makes all the difference.
My budget did not allow for the premium brand, but I did find a nice LazyBoy brand one at Sam's club that works well.

Two additional minor upgrades were a sonic humidify along with a foam pad mat to keep my feet warmer.

If your work area is cold like a basement; maybe a room heater to take the chill off would be productive.