Today we think of Virginia Woolf as a great writer, but viewed through the lens of the early 21st century, she was also a home-based businesswoman.  When Woolf began helping her husband, Leonard, operate a small hand-press on their dining room table in their Surrey home in 1917, she probably didn't think of it as a home business.  Setting up the press allowed Woolf to self-publish, and it served as a diversion from the daily grind of writing, and the depression that eventually overwhelmed her.  Eventually, the Woolfs' hobby became the highly influential Hogarth Press, which published some of the greatest writers of the early 20th century, including Katherine Mansfield and T.S. Eliot.

Woolf reveled in the project, often coming straight downstairs in the morning to set type still wearing her dressing gown, her hair unkempt - much to the consternation of her cook.  Like any successful company, Hogarth Press grew to require staff and larger quarters.  But for a good many years Woolf was able to enjoy the benefits of working from home: choosing when to work, write, eat, rest, go out, accept visitors, and of course, being English, stop for a spot of tea.

Like Woolf, most Americans who currently work at home at least one day a week - there are over 19.8 million of us, based on 2002 estimates by the Bureau of Labor Statistics at the U.S. Department of Labor - do so in order to improve their quality of life, and perhaps sow the seeds of creativity or business.

perspectiveRunning a home office or home-based business is "a phenomenon that's still only in its growth stage," says Gerald Celente of the Trends Research Institute.  However, this phenomenon, somewhat ironically, is nothing new: "Whether people were spinning wool or farming or making things to sell at the market, they've always worked at home.  There was only a [relatively] brief period, during the 20th century, when people began working outside the home in offices."

As the 20th century came to a close, says Celente, "a funny thing happened about working at home.  Even 15 years ago, if you were working out of your home, you were looked upon as a loser.  That's how much has changed.  Now, you're a winner if you work at home.  It's something everyone wants to pull off."

The status of working from home rose sharply, says Celente, only when "technology really started to kick in," and fax machines, desktop computers, cell phones, laptops, and the Internet became readily available and affordable.

While the home office may be one of the most tangible results of the technological age, it is also "the most intriguing and least understood" contemporary phenomenon, in both pragmatic and psychological terms, claims industrial relations professor Nancy J. Johnson in Telecommuting and Virtual Offices: Issues and Opportunities (Idea Group Publishing, 2001).  A sign of American culture's difficulty in comprehending the workings and consequences of this new workforce is the long list of terms we've devised for folks who work from home: teleworkers, telematics, mobile workers, E-workers, remote workers, virtual workers, worksteaders, and - my personal favorite - digital nomads.

DESIGN DOS AND DON'TS
When it comes to setting up your home office, experts and telecommuters agree on one thing: if at all possible, make your office a separate room.  And never, if you can help it, work in the bedroom.

"I believe your power tool is your door," says Jeff Zbar.  "You close it when you're working so others at home respect your work, and you close it at the end of the day so the boundaries between work and home don't get blurred."  Zbar is a Florida-based journalist, author, and small business advocate whose Web site, Chief Home Officer, is an information clearinghouse and chat room for small office/home office owners.  "If you must work in a room used for other things," says Zbar, "you can use a line of potted plants or a Japanese Shoji screen to separate your workspace."

Designer Sue Wittig, proprietor of Wallpaper World Shop-at-Home Services, based in Kingston, agrees.  "It's best to close the door on work that's been done, and to shut work space off," she says.  Her clients tend to fall into two groups: those who must have a completely separate office, and second-homeowners who devote part of their living space - usually the kitchen, living room, or great room - to the work they bring home for the weekend.  In the latter case, Wittig recommends using roll-top desks, corner desks, and armoire desks, along with continuing the room's general décor but using a border or slightly different window treatment, such as Roman blinds.  "You want to incorporate the feeling of the home in general but make the workspace a little more commercial," Wittig says.