I used to be somewhat embarrassed by the fact I worked from a home office, in Papamoa...

I was a commercial interior designer, and had worked for large architectural practices in Auckland prior to relocating to Tauranga and setting up Bubble Interiors; large practices who had large “showpiece” offices for clients to visit.

And so I felt like I wasn’t really walking the talk… that I needed “proper” commercial premises to be a “real” business and taken seriously. When really, it totally worked for me at the time.

When I started Bubble Interiors back in 2010 (based in Papamoa initially), my girls were still really young, and I wanted to be able to have the flexibility to pick them up from kindy, then work from home in the evenings after they went to bed.

So we converted the garage for Bubble studio, with the capacity for 4 of us to work there.

Now, I love showing photos of this space because I can see that it was actually the epitome of a “Workspace that Works!”

I consider myself really lucky that I was able to create a scenario where I could work from home, to be around for my girls after school, and when they were sick; but still have employees able to work in the same space which was important for collaboration + developing our design ideas.

An entry wall (perfect for our logo), and our cube library shelving, hid storage space + laundry behind.

Then, because there was already plenty of natural light, we had our friendly builders build a false wall on the inside of the garage roller door… so on the outside it looked like a normal garage, but on the inside we had a built in banquette running the whole width, with hinged lids for LOTS of storage under the seat, plus a built-in picture ledge. Super practical!

It worked so well in fact, that I converted my garage again in 2019 when we moved across to Tauranga…

This time I swapped out the existing garage roller door for full width glass sliders, and to detract attention from the laundry + storage cupboard on the back wall, we painted half of the space (including the ceiling!) charcoal, in contrast to a fresh white to the 2 other walls.

This meant that when people came in their attention was drawn to the stunning view of the park out the back, and a full width charcoal linen curtain hid the laundry nook, as well as helping with acoustics.

Floating Interface carpet tiles in both spaces meant that if we sold, and new owners wanted to re-instate the garages, the original concrete floors would still be in perfect condition.

Let me know your thoughts! Do you have a home office? How’s it working for you?