I am thinking of moving my farm office into the bunkhouse. I would like to know, from those of you who have offices set up, what you have in the way of equipment, set-up, whatever! Do your customers have a special way to access your office? Is there a separate entrance? Do you have special insurance? How do you separate/maintain your tax records? Just anything that you think would be useful regarding home/farm offices, and especially how to save money doing so, would be very helpful!

Thanks in advance!

-- sheepish (rborgo@gte.net), July 11, 2000

Answers

my husbands office is our kitchen soon to move to a new building{i hope} we did get special insurance to cover the office stuff it isa rider on the commercial policey,it also covers anyone who would get hurt if they were here on buisness. we do not have alot of people coming to our house but i say get a seperate bathroom. we have file cabinets, computer, drawing table, work table, and storage.i can not wait until it is gone! i forgot the fax and seperate telephone line that makes taxes easier. good luck

-- renee oneill (oneillsr@home.com), July 12, 2000.

I am in and out of our office all day and all of the evenings. Don't know what I would do if the office wasn't right here in the house. I have one ear cocked towards the kitchen, listening for the canner and listening to the meat frying for supper.

Most things that must be done in the office are done in "hitches" - a few minutes at a time, between farm, garden and kitchen chores.

Don't stick that office too far away from your base of operations.

-- homestead2 (homestead@monroecty.net), July 12, 2000.

Ours is supposed to be in the front, actually a room that never got turned into a bathroom. But, I hate it in there, all closed in! The computer, fax, phone lines are in the dining room. This way I can do everything I need to and still answer phones and do payroll and invoices. We don't have customers over for Handy Man Services, but when I have customers for the goats, I have a big dining room table I statigically place them at where they have to look at me and my trophy table. I keep all the bills seperate, and we do take the square footage of the office/room off on taxes, also a percentage of electric etc. Same goes for farm, percentage of land tax, percentage of electric. We have no mortage or it would be a percentage of it also. Any good tax attorney has information on how you can eaisly figure this out. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), July 12, 2000.

We just recently did our wood shed over into an office for our homeschooling business. We managed to fit three rooms in the total area. A mud room that leads out toward the barns. A book room, which has 'tons' of books in it, a work counter, a photocopier and a paper shelf; and finally a big space for Mom's L-desk, a work table, a shipment shelf, a book shelf, a three computers, a printer, a fax, a scanner, a filing cabinet and a rocking chair. There is also a door leading out onto a porch, towards the gardens. The kind of 'equipment' you put in your office will depend on your business I suppose. As for enterance doors...we usually bring folks through the sunroom door and its just a step to a 4step stairway into the office. The sunroom also leads into our kitchen. We have one of those old farmhouses where to get to one room, you either have to walk around the house and enter the front door, or walk through every other room! Anyway, we found that having our office attached, but yet a bit separate, was nice. Its not too far, but yet we don't live in it!

-- Abigail F. (treeoflife@sws.nb.ca), July 13, 2000.

We built an addition so my husband got to move up from a dark basement. We have a door leading to the outside, his business requires a computer, printer, fax, scanner, & digital camera. Our insurance agent was adamant about insurance that would cover our business. It wasn't that much & it's too easy to get sued when you have people other than friends at your doorstep. As far as taxes I would consult an attorney. We assumed that we would claim this office but in our state if you move within a few years you have to pay a portion back. If you don't move, no problem. There are little things like that a lot of people don't know that an attorney can tell you. Ours is not a farm business so some things may be different.

-- Lenore (archambo@winco.net), July 14, 2000.