Finally, Cool Furniture for the Computer (and All Its Friends)
A Dell Dimension was installed in our son’s bedroom last December, where it displaced 135 Beanie Babies, a dozen baseball trophies and one vacant turtle shell.
Our family of three was finally clicking on to e-life, joining the 60% of American households that now have a computer at home. We knew we were seriously late to the game. For months, we had debated about where to park a clunky, putty-colored box and its accompanying cyber-clutter in our tiny three-bedroom brick colonial.
The Web weaves a messy web. While the techno-riche are building smart houses and plotting our wireless future, most of us are still learning to live with hardware, software, fax machines, scanners, surge protectors and chattering printers--not to mention the tangle of wires that connects them all.
These machines are intruders that don’t quite “go” in any room--except a designated home office for those fortunate enough to have one. We conceal the bulky boxes behind closet doors, disguise them in armoires, make space for them on undersized desks, prop them on wobbly tables.
Welcoming a computer into the house is still a new experience for many Americans: 70% of all home computer purchasers today are first-time buyers, according to a recent Microsoft survey. Two-thirds of the models they carry home are destined for a home office or family room/den. The rest end up in literally every corner of the house.
“It’s kind of like having a baby,” says Stacy Elliott, whose business card reads “Microsoft Digital Diva” and who was hired by that company to help consumers cut through techno-speak and understand technology issues and trends. “You think long and hard about what room you are going to put it in. And you think about all of the other things you need when you get a computer: printer, scanner, digital camera. It’s a big decision about where you will put it in your house.”
Elliott travels the country as a tech ambassador, addressing community organizations like women’s, parenting and senior citizens’ groups, and giving media interviews. Her Web site, https://www.digitaldiva.com, answers consumers’ questions via e-mail and lists her national touring schedule, a la Martha Stewart. “I’ve heard of people putting computers in every room of the house. No place sounds unusual to me.”
No place is perfect either. At our house, we considered the attic (too hot), the basement (too grungy) and the guest room (too pretty to mess up). The master bedroom was already full. So we decided on our child’s bedroom, a choice made by 10% of those who responded to Microsoft surveys. He could use the computer for schoolwork; we could use it when he was elsewhere, or tiptoe in and sign on after he was asleep. The solution has its drawbacks, but it works for us. For now.
A whole industry is growing up to help with such dilemmas. While many houses today are being built with dedicated offices, existing homes must carve out organized niches for tech gear. According to Jan Stotlemyer, president of the Washington-area Closet and Office Factory franchise, 30% of her business is now designing and constructing residential custom work spaces.
When her designers arrive, they often find a rickety table in a spare bedroom layered with computer components, printers, wires and piles of software. Many clients request space for two people to work at the same computer, especially when there are children.
“If you buy computer furniture, you have to mold your stuff to fit their space,” says Stotlemyer, whose company is based in Waldorf, Md. “Here, we custom-design it. We measure your printer, fax, monitor and count all those CDs and manuals and files and ask what you want to hide behind closed doors.” Cost? $1,500 to $2,000, for a typical setup including desk, drawers, files and storage.
Meanwhile, in the early 1990s, the mainstream furniture industry started playing catch-up with Silicon Valley, watching as millions of consumers shelled out $99 for knock-down computer desks at office superstores. But as more and more people began getting online, telecommuting and running home-based businesses, furniture manufacturers and retailers increasingly saw the need for well-designed, multi-functional residential computer furniture.
Today’s home office furniture business is booming. Annual retail sales in 1999 were $2.5 billion, up 31% from 1996, according to market research by Furniture/Today, an industry trade publication based in High Point, N.C.
According to the American Furniture Manufacturers Assn., about 10% of their members have started producing home office furniture, and it is one of the fastest-growing segments of the business. The office-supply retailers and warehouse big-box stores have been joined by virtually every type of furniture store looking for a piece of the home-computer-furniture dollar. Specialty retailers like Home Elements, Storehouse, Ikea and Crate & Barrel now set aside space to display desks with keyboard drawers and wire-management holes, plus coordinating lateral files, shelves, trolleys and chairs. A spokesman for Mastercraft Interiors says customers are seeking stylish solutions from makers like Stickley and Hooker Furniture, especially armoires that hold hardware behind closed doors.
One especially forward-thinking manufacturer is Stanley Furniture, a Stanleytown, Va., company that had sales of $264 million last year. The company’s nine home office collections are designed to complement the styles of their bestselling living room, dining room, bedroom and home-entertainment collections in maple, cherry, ash and oak.
According to Christy Landon, Stanley’s product manager for home office, “We are one of the few manufacturers of home office furniture that also offers everything else for the entire home. If you want to put your computer in your great room, we have a desk that can match the rest of the furniture in there.” Stanley has built additional manufacturing plants and warehouses to keep up with demand and to ensure fast shipping (https://www.stanleyfurniture.com).
Interior designers are increasingly called on to find an attractive solution to clients’ wire-management and techno-clutter problems. Deborah Houseworth, a designer in Chevy Chase, Md., says computers are an element of nearly every decorating job. She’s currently transforming one family’s large but rarely used dining room into a computer room.
But she says some clients won’t spend money for space planning or decorating offices, something she finds perplexing. “You spend a half-hour a night in your dining room, but several hours on the Internet each night,” says Houseworth.
Designers look forward to computers themselves becoming smaller and better looking--as accepted as a TV in people’s homes.
According to industrial designer Mark Kimbrough, a principal in Design Edge of Austin, Texas, which designs for such clients as Dell, Motorola and Toshiba, the translucent, candy-colored iMac changed the playing field for computer design. But the makers of PCs take a long time in engineering new models.
“The beige standard was designed for business. Companies thought they could put it in a box, call it a home computer and sell it,” says Kimbrough. “However, computers are moving much more rapidly in the direction of incorporating trends and fashion into their design.”
According to Kristina Goodrich, executive director of the Industrial Designers Society of America in Great Falls, Va., the computer industry is looking at ways to change its products.
“They haven’t adapted to the home yet,” Goodrich says. “But look how long it took car companies before they started making cars that did not look like carriages. Right now, we are at this delicate point that companies are beginning to realize that the home consumer wants something different, but because the consumer is buying the stuff anyway, there is no push to really innovate.”
In the meantime, consumers have to make their own peace with the technology that is becoming a permanent fixture in homes.
One recent night, I lingered in my son’s room, shuffling papers on the computer desk after I kissed him good night. He could tell I was itching to check my e-mail.
“Mom,” came a little voice from under the comforter. “Would you please leave the room so that I can get to sleep and you can come back and use the computer?”
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Where’s the Computer?
Playroom, den, family room: 33%
Office, library, study: 28%
Your bedroom: 16%
Living room: 14%
Child’s bedroom: 10%
Computer room: 10%
Other room: 8%
Dining room: 6%
Kitchen: 3%
TV room: 1%
Source: Microsoft
