CB>                   Great idea!
had to put an office together with no money to do so after being on Workers' 
Comp for 10 months, working for 8 months, then being on Unemployment for 11 
months.  There was nothing left.  The 8 months of steady income had not 
compensated for the time off work before I was off work again.  Found all 
sorts of ways to make a business-like working environment suitable to be seen 
by clients and business associates without having any money to spend on it.
 CB>                    My dining room has a big window, 
 CB> Not much of a view:)
 CB> My shed is outside But still some sun. That's 
 
Paint the shed and/or grow plants against it that you get pleasure from 
looking at.  At least if it's your shed, you control the view from your 
office window.  It needs to be something that will rest your psyche and give 
you pleasure to look at through the window, not something that will entice 
you outside   If, when you look at the flowers, you think "I have to get 
out there and weed those" flowers are not the right things for you to plant 
against your shed.  If you paint Elmo peeking through an orange windowframe 
on your shed and it makes you smile every time you see it, that's right for 
you to do.  It would irritate the hell out of me, so I would plant ivies to 
climb all over the shed and hang bird feeders from the eaves.  You have to do 
what will give you a smile or a feeling of relaxation, but not call you away 
from the task at hand.
 
 CB> have my "office"  in the bedroom now.  I hate it. It is hard to feel
 CB> "businesslike" with your bed behind you My mobile home is too small
 CB> to section it off. Besides my fiance has all his computer stuff set up
 
That would never work for me, either.  The room my office is in now used to 
be my bedroom.  It now has nothing but office equipment in it, and is painted 
in the business colours, but we had this business for a year and a half 
before I had the money to do this.  Previously the office was a room less 
than half this size, which was painted with whatever I could find, so the 
walls were mostly covered with examples of our ads and achievements.  Great 
boost to keeping going when it looked like we couldn't.  This is much more 
businesslike, but I do kinda miss looking at walls papered with my 
achievements.  Plus a photocopy of the first cheque we recieved from a 
customer, framed and hanging on the wall.  It has place of honour in this 
office, too.  Looking at your first buck is a great psychological boost, both 
when things are going well (look how far we've come!) and when things are 
going badly (that's our first buck - we really are a real company)
 
 CB> have to put a hide a bed in the living room:( I don't know about that
 CB> idea. The kids would fight constantly but I'd have a separate office
 CB> with no other traffic...well didn't mean to go on about it:) Just
 CB> thinking out loud(kinda) :)
 
We're here to help one another run businesses from our homes.  If my 
experiences and thoughts help you, that's great, because the folk here have 
helped me by sharing their ideas and thoughts.  It's not only the usable 
ideas themselves, it's the moral support, the feeling of being less alone 
than I seem to be, that has helped me so much.  I can't actually give back 
the help they've given me, but if I can hand it on in however small a way, 
that's great.
--- Maximus 2.01wb
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