Best home office storage solutions for the self-employed

As a contractor or freelancer, there will have always been some element of working from home to your role – even if it was just paperwork and bookkeeping a few times a month. But as we emerge into a post-lockdown world, you may find yourself working from home a lot more often and, for this reason, you’ll probably want to think about setting up a proper home office space.

This could be a spare room in your house from which you operate your limited company, or it may be a dedicated space within a reception room, or a shared office with your partner where you run your PSC and they work from home for their employer.

However you work it out, there’s one thing you can’t escape: the need for storage solutions.  We’ve asked around the Kingsbridge team and here are some of our favourites.

The room divider

If you have to share an office space, or work from your living or dining room, a room divider can be a great piece of furniture to separate yourself and your work from the rest of the house. We love IKEA’s iconic KALLAX series for just this purpose.

The modular shelves are the same front and back so they can be used to divide up your space (although you should ensure they are attached to a wall for safety). You can customise them to your needs by adding drawers, doors, inserts with extra shelves, peg boards, storage baskets, and even a desk. It’s the perfect multifunctional storage solution that has the added bonus of looking good.

The filing cabinet

If you keep physical records of your projects, deal with sensitive information, or have a lot of paperwork, a filing cabinet is essential home office storage. Depending on your needs, you can get these with two, three or four drawers, usually locking with a key.

We would always suggest you opt for one more drawer than you think you need so that you have space for your business to grow, and remember to get plenty of suspension files too.

Wall storage

If space is at a premium, then wall storage can be a big help. The traditional cork board is, of course, ever popular. With the help of some push pins, it can free up desk space by holding reminders, documents, folders, pictures… You can be as creative as you like.

Pegboards, meanwhile, are a fashionable yet practical solution to storing non-paper office supplies, meaning you can keep things out of reach of children and pets as well as keeping your desk free of clutter. There are lots out there, but we’re quite fond of SKÅDIS by IKEA.

The pegboards themselves come in a few different sizes and accessories include containers, hooks, roll holders, elastic cords, storage bags, clips, and shelves. You can have pretty much your entire office (bar your laptop) on the wall.

We’d love to see your creative home office solutions so please feel free to share with us or let us know what products have helped you.