I jokingly refer to it as "the bunker," but my remodeled home office was definitely worth taking a break from my new book to complete.

In fact, for most of the early research and writing, my temporary office was the island in the kitchen and, when my younger son would break from YouTube, the desktop computer in the guest room.

In the chapter on home offices in my first book, I suggested that many of us, especially those who design new homes, went a little overboard when they created these residential work spaces.

That suggestion was based on seeing too many dark, paneled offices on either the left or the right side of an entrance hall of a model house or one of those mega-mansions created for a builders' show somewhere. When I consider how many coffee cup rings I wash off the desk of my home office each week, I can't begin to imagine where I'd put my cup on a heavy, dark and probably very expensive oak desk.

Windows don't seem to help a lot of these heavy rooms, either. I call them "heavy" because they overwhelm you when you walk through the door. If you have to be working at home, the surroundings should be pleasant at the very least, since deep down you know you really don't want to be working at home -- unless life at the office is so bad that working a broom closet would be preferable.

Back in 2000-2001, the home office was the wave of the future. Predictions were that the ability to telecommute long distances would, in a few years, mean that the workplace would host staff meetings once a week and that's about it. The company's main office would be subdivided -- I supposed into condos -- and the weekly meetings would be farmed out to satellite office space that the business would rent.

At the same time, the dot.coms (remember them) were attracting thousands of young men and women who preferred working together in renovated factories and for at least 18 hours every day. The dot.com entrepreneurs who hired these folks decided to create workplaces with 24-hour convenience stores, child care centers and fitness areas to help the employees deal with long hours on the job at the office.

The desire to live within walking distance of work helped launch the present-day city revival movement, sustained by young professionals and empty nesters after many of the dot.coms went bye-bye.

The vision of America's white-collar workers spending their days at home at work rather than 90 minutes on traffic-choked roads to the office never materialized, primarily because of the need for social interaction around the water cooler, I suppose. Frankly, there just wasn't a very good reason to work at home -- unless you needed to finish work that would have kept you late at the office.

In addition, many employers were just not comfortable letting workers out of their sight for days at a time, no matter how much work they were producing. When I asked my boss for a company laptop so I wouldn't have to scramble for one each time I had to travel, he agreed, but added that he hoped I wasn't going to use it to avoid coming into the office every day.

Recent data compiled by the American Institute of Architects indicates renewed interest in the home office among owners of new and existing houses, with clients citing the price of gasoline as the primary reason for working more at home. Energy costs, in general, are a major concern of clients, the AIA says, and, as prices continue to rise, more remodeling money will be spent on tightening up houses as well as creating specialty rooms to reduce dependence on the automobile.

Finding a place for a self-contained home office isn't easy for existing-home owners or first-time buyers on tight budgets. Typically, a home office is a desk and computer in a guest room or bedroom, or maybe working on a laptop in the living room while watching TV -- especially if you have a high-speed DLS or cable modem and a wireless router that doesn't tie you to a particular location.

If you are fortunately to have a dry basement that hasn't been taken over by the kids and their friends, you might be able to carve out a comfortable, efficient space with storage to accommodate everything you can't fit in your tiny cubicle at work. In my case, a couple of large bookcases serve also as dividers from the rest of the basement. I have plenty of desk and file space, wireless access to a high-speed cable modem, a large bulletin board along one wall, an old sofa that holds the overflow of material from my desk and a combination fax, copier, scanner and printer that takes up as much room as any one of those machines.

Of course, the most important piece is cable television. After all, you need something to make up for the lack of water cooler conversation with colleagues.

Published: January 4, 2007

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Al Heavens writes about real estate and home repair and improvement. He is the author of What No One Ever Tells You About Renovating Your Home: Real-Life Advice For Hassle-free, Cost-Effective Remodeling.