The Practical Implications of Having a Freelancing Office

Over the past few weeks, Lorna has spent some time gushing about the gloriousness that is our new office. As well she should. It’s cute, it’s well-situated, and I cannot even begin to tell you how productive I am without my child or my house underfoot.

However, as with most things, not everything about having an office space is hunky-dory. While I don’t regret for an instant our decision to move in, I felt it wouldn’t be fair to let our readers envy us with complete abandon. Because there is another side to the story: a financially-draining, manual-labor-filled, noisy one.

The Cost of Office Space

The first thing to consider is the cost of rent and utilities. As mentioned before, we got one heck of a deal. We pay $350 per month for about 180 square feet of office space. All utilities – including electricity and Internet – are included, though if we wanted a phone line, we’d have to pay for it. (We don’t want one right now. We’re good with using our cell phones.) This fee also includes one parking pass for a lot right across the street.

But there are additional costs, as well:

Parking for the other person (we’re estimating about $40/month)
Office furniture/decorations (to date, about $450, but we need more)
Office supplies (to date, about $100)
Kitchenette supplies (like water, teas, etc. – we haven’t purchased any yet, but we expect to)
Coffee at the downstairs cafe (Tamara expects to spend at least $60/month; Lorna has more restraint)

No matter where you work, these sorts of things pop up. But because we’re moving in and purchasing everything all at once, we are forced to really face the costs of being freelancers.

The Hassle of Moving In

We had the grand idea of having our husbands help us move in, and while they’ve been okay, most of the manual labor has fallen to us.

I helped haul a couple of 100-pound desks up two flights of stairs and then had to assemble one of them. I also had to assemble a bookshelf (the same day – does anyone else hate those painful little allen wrenches you’re expected to use to put those things together?). I had ridiculously sore forearms the next day.

Lorna and her hubby brought up another bookshelf and some lamps. We haven’t even started on a seating area yet, and we still have plenty of things that need to be hung up on the walls. And then there’s the fact that our entire building has one tiny little garbage can (literally the size of the one my three-person family uses at home), so we had to haul all the boxes and garbage from the move back home for disposal.

Overall, it’s taken quite a bit of time to get everything settled, and we’re hardly settled yet. And if we ever leave or move to a new space, it will have to be done all over again.

Non-Child Interruptions

I’m actually quite productive without my daughter underfoot, but that’s not to say that there aren’t other things that get in my way. There’s construction downstairs, which won’t last forever, but provides a bit of noise just the same. The offices aren’t very soundproof, so we can hear conversations next door and from the woman right below us. I’m sure these people can hear our conversations, too, so we have to lower our voices when we discuss a) them; and b) inappropriate subjects. Both of which come up more frequently than you’d expect…

There are also plenty of great new people to meet in our building. Everyone has been really friendly and welcoming, but each conversation detracts a little more from the time we have set aside for work. Plus, each time a person walks by, I instinctively look to see who it is. Distracting, that.

Yet, we can’t overlook the value of this little community of networking. It seems that almost everyone in our building has worked with someone else in it; web designers overlap with architects, who hit up the massage therapists or hire the PR firms. We honestly expect to start finding some local clients here, which has always been a goal of ours that we have only partially realized so far.

At the end of the day, we really are happy to be here. Lorna is still struggling to reconcile her desire to work at the office with being home and easily accessible for her daughter. I have to learn how to focus my energy to work in three-hour blocks of time – a skill I’ve apparently lost due to working in much shorter bursts at home.

We’re hoping that as the months progress, we’ll start to see this office as an investment rather than a luxury. We’re investing in our time, our sanity, and the professional front we put to the world. Let’s hope it pays off.