Home Office Set-Up for Video Conferences
- Sarah
- Mar 14, 2021
- 4 min read
After a lot of trial and error with my office set-up over the last year, i think I am finally ok with what I have at least until I get around to ripping out carpet and painting my desk.
With this post I am going to capture what I learned so I do not forget and who knows maybe it will help someone else.
THE SITUATION:
Like so many others Chris and I have been working from home since the Pandemic started. We both have jobs that require us to be on calls all day long so after about 6 months we’d had enough of sharing an office. It was so annoying to be talking over each other all the time and I started to get to the point where his breathing and chewing caused great anger in me. This is when I knew it was time for me to find a new location for myself in our home. So with his gracious help we cleared out a tiny spare bedroom and moved me over.
Thinking the pandemic would surely be over in a couple more months I didn’t bother to do much with my office. Well, now it’s been a full year and I am still not sure when we’re going to go back in. I think it’s time to try to make my office at least not miserable to be in.
I had a few requirements. Good lighting, a good view behind me for conference calls, a cute enough for now. I wanted to enjoy being in my office.
I did a lot of online searching for ideas ESPECIALLY for conference backgrounds and all I could find was background ideas for game streamers, You Tubers, etc. But nothing really for us who work from home and need a professional background. What is up with that? Perhaps I am not searching the right words. If anyone else has found information on this topic, PLEASE COMMENT!
TIPS FOR SETTING UP A HOME OFFICE FOR VIDEO CONFERENCING:
Lighting - Windows: If there is a window in the room, the best situation is to have the window in front of your desk. The second best options is to have the window off to your side. The worst is to have the window behind you. It will make you appear dark in videos. In my case, if I put the desk in front of the window, the door would be behind me so I settled for the window on the side.
Lighting - Other: Do not only depend on old overhead lighting. It points down and makes you look older. Find a natural full spectrum light bulb and put it at eye level behind your computer straight onto your face. Another option is to just search online for video lights there are a lot of fairly cheap options out there. I found a webcam that has a light on it that helps me out. (Correction 03/17/2021: I’ve been reading up on lighting and they suggest the light at about 11 o’clock pointing at your face but down ..which helps define the chin. The more I read I feel like you could go nuts with lighting so I will stop there.)
Office wall color: I’ve found that the safest colors on the walls for an office is a creamy white (with warm undertones). If I did a cool white I looked sick.. then it occurred to me; That unflattering light coming off the monitors reflecting about the room casts a greenish or blueish tinge on my skin and makes me look sick. I switched to cream and it really helped.
Best place for desk: In my opinion unless you are blessed with a huge beautiful, well-kept home with guarantees that no one might walk behind you during a conference call you should make sure you have a wall approximately 5 feet behind you. 5 - 6 feet seems to be the optimal distance IMHO for conference calls. If you are 5 feet away you’ll need to decorate about an 8 foot span of wall.
Worst decor for the wall behind your desk: Mirrors or glass covered art hung on the walls because people on conference calls will see your computer and lights reflected in them. Also if you go to loud and bright with your art it can come off as tacky on video conference. If you really want to be bright test it with a friend on conference call to make sure you really like it.
Best decor for the wall behind your desk: Canvas art, plants, baskets, tapestries, books, vases, sculptures... things that don’t reflect light but also don’t distract away from you when you are talking. Make sure to test your layout with a friend on conference. I found some websites with cheap canvas art and that’s what I used.
Camera distance - You should be able to sit back in your camera and have people see you from the waste up. Being zoomed in on your face all day on calls can be very intense for other people.
MY FAIL
The following was my first real attempt at decorating the wall behind my desk and it was a fail. In the conference calls it looked like I only had a little something behind my chair and head and looked weird. I realized I needed to cover a broader area with interest. Also the reflection in the picture did not work.
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