Live Work Units - Listings: Find, Buy Or Rent Real Estate - LiveWorkUnit.com

A lot of people assume that working from home is a greener and more environmentally friendly solution.  But how green is it really to work from home?  So you’re saving 1-2 gallons of gas a day, and not using your car as much, but couldn’t that be remedied by utilizing public transportation?

Or is your thermostat cranked up too far in your non-energy efficient home?  Is all of the heating and lighting just for yourself?  Do the lights automatically turn off and are you recycling office paper?

There’s definitely varying views on this touchy subject and as more questions arise, the answer of how “green” a business is gets trickier to answer.

Read more about Wired.com’s view about working from home and take a look at the Treehugger Guide to Working from Home.  They offer very interesting perspectives and tips on working from home, or in your case a live work unit.

Choosing the right lighting for your office can be difficult.  Overusing fluorescent lighting can be draining on employees while dimly lit offices are more prone to sleepiness.  Choosing a warm lighting for your home can also be tricky.  Over use of recessed lighting can prove damaging to your electricity bill & wallet, and underuse of accents can make a beautiful home look, well… boring.

Lighting Live work units prove to be a difficult task for many interior designers & business owners.  Faced with the predicament of lighting for beauty, going green, or lighting for productivity.

Here are a few tips on how to light a live work unit to increase productivity while keeping aesthetics in mind.

1. Think For All Seasons

Your lighting must work for all seasons.  While days are longer in summer, is there enough lighting for fall and winter when the sun sets closer to 5pm?  Inadequate lighting can slow down your productivity.  When choosing lighting, be sure that you are comfortable with it any time of the day.

2. Placement Is Key

A great light incorrectly placed is just as bad as a bad light.  Think of your workflow and how you will be sitting and moving around your live work unit.  Where do your tasks start and where do they end?  The sooner you figure this out, the sooner lighting placement will come to you.

3. Look For Inspiration

Go to your local bookstore and flip through an architecture/interior design magazine or book.  These will give you ideas that you can work with and modify to your needs.

4. Think Within Your Budget

When choosing lighting, a lot of entrepreneurs forget about their budget.  The fancier the design of the light, the more it will generally cost.  But this initial cost is not the only thing you should be concerned about, but also the monthly operating costs.  Will these bulbs last countless hours?  How many watts are they?  Do I need to have these lights on at all times?  The last thing any startup wants is an extravagent electricity bill.

4. Start On The Ground!

If you’re not sure about how your furniture will be laid out, or how many employees you’ll have working at your live work unit, start on the ground.  By that we mean with floor lamps, desk lamps, and movable lighting.  This will allow you to gauge where lighting in adequate and how to make it better.

Best of luck in your light endeavors!

ApartmentTherapy recently featured an article on three easy steps on how to land the perfect apartment.  If you are in the market for a new live work unit or apartment and plan to rent you really want to check out this list.  To sum it up, they recommend bringing a printed out credit report, a filled out application, and a rental resume (with a list of previous landlords and references).

While this list is great, we feel it is lacking a very important factor, which is the need to dress for success!  As many would say a first impression is a lasting impression.  You should dress as if you were coming for a job interview.  If you really want this specific piece of real estate, what better time than now to show that you are serious, successful (financially can afford the place), and care about appearance (won’t destroy the apartment!).

Best of luck in your search!

Want More Apartment Hunting Tips?

Here’s a few great online resources for apartment hunting
Tips on Apartment Hunting (Columbia.edu)

And here is an even greater list of what to look for while you are at the apartment:
During The Apartment Search

Live Work Units are great because they can drastically help increase your work productivity.  One can skip the daily 1-hour spent commuting and in a week’s time essentially save an extra 5 hours that can be put to work, rest, or sleep!

But there is one important factor that isn’t often discussed, increases in stress.  For those not accustomed to the environment of working from home, live work units present surprising challenges.  One must be able to distinguish the line between business and personal life.

We’re into the 3 step plan, so here are 3 tips on how to help distinguish between work and personal life.
1. Set physical boundaries.  In your live work unit, setup a work area, and away from it a “play area.”  Don’t take work or your laptop to your bedroom, keep it in the office area.

2. Make a schedule and try to stick to it. If you need to take an hour break to handle personal stuff, but don’t let business and personal tasks blend or else you’ll feel like you’re wasting the entire day around with not many results.

3. Set your tasks the night before! Clear your mind and make your to-do list for the next business day.  This way you’ll get to sleep quicker.

Yahoo! recently featured an article on America’s Most Stressful Cities.  Toping the list was Chicago, Detroit & Los Angeles.  Read the full article on America’s Most Stressful Cities.

If you’re living in a live work unit, small apartment, or loft once in a while you probably notice clutter.
Ikea Hacker is such a great blog!

We found a great blog that we thought we might highlight in this week’s post.  World, meet Ikea Hacker.  Ikea Hacker is a blog dedicated to all things Ikea (you know the large home department store).  The blog focuses on hacks and modifications for existing Ikea furniture.

Why is Ikea Hacker so great?
It is totally geared towards the home business!  That means it’s ideal for the live work units and entrepreneurs who want stylish practical furnture while not spending a bundle on it.

Here are our top 3 picks from Ikea Hacker:

1. Sliding Room Door Divider
This is perfect for the live work unit.  When you have clients you can slide the door closed to hide the personal area,

2. Loft Lighting & Design
This is how you should decorate a loft! Check out the before and after pictures and see the amazing transformation!

3. Sofa Table Hack
Transform a standard sofa table into something greater!  This is great for displaying products or just general decorations in your living room.

Interested in more? Browse Ikea Hacker for more inspiration.

Choosing a live work unit roommate can be a very challenging task.  You are faced with the difficulty of balancing between work and friendships.  Choosing a friend could be detrimental to your business, while choosing a business partner could also be harmful if you are not accustomed to their personal habits.

Here’s a few tips that could help in the roommate selection process:

1. Think business first. Remember that the reason you have chose to live in a live work unit is because you are putting your business first.  You may have clients coming over, be on the phone constantly, or need to do production at your place.  You should make sure your room mate is not a slob, noisy, and fully understanding of the scenario.

2. Is your roommate trustworthy? While we highlighted the usefulness of Craigslist last week, it’s important to remember you’ll have sensitive business documents and files around.  The last thing you want to do is open all of this up to a stranger you just met.

3. Can you do this without a roommate? Re-evaluate the pros and cons of roommates.  Financially they may be great, but will this slow down your productivity or ability to expand your business?

The housing situation down in Houston, Texas is still very challenging for many residents.  Weeks after Hurricane Ike hit the area, over 250,000 residents are still without running water.

As the Houston Chronicle reports, a lot of city water lines were damaged and unrooted due to the storm, and that is a major reason for the delay.

We hope normalcy returns soon for those effected.

Following Myspace, Craigslist is probably one of the most visited web sites that brings such an electic mix of indivduals together.
Craigslist can be a jewel when searching for bargain furniture or electronics, but when it comes to the “gigs” section, it’s a whole new story.  There are many amateurs advertising themselves as professionals, and at the same time many professionals who are scammers.  You have to be careful on craigslist!

Now for the house hunter, Craigslist has a wonderfully developed and constantly updated housing section.
The housing section is broken into these sections:

• Apts / Housing
• Rooms / Shared
• Sublets / Temporary
• Housing Wanted
• Housing Swap
• Vacation Rentals
• Parking / Storage
• Office / Commercial
• Real Estate for Sale

Whether you are looking to rent or buy a house, live work unit, or apartment, craigslist is a great resource.

Here are 3 to house hunting with craigslist:

1. Call the person!  Even though it says it’s available, it may no longer be! Save your time and gas and make a call before driving over to see the location.
2. Worried if it’s a safe neighborhood? Check FamilyWatchdog.US to search for location information. Along with this you should ask friends if the area is a safe one to be in.
3. If you decide to check out the listing, go during the day.  During the day allows to better examine the real estate and look for chipped paint, mold, and anything darkness may hide.

Good luck in your house hunt!

After launching this blog I realized that limiting it solely to live-work unit related posts would make it well… somewhat boring.  Here is a video promoting London 2012 by Squint/Opera (an architecture animation studio).  I really hope this Olympic Stadium lives up to the architecture of the Bird’s Nest, though it will be very difficult!

See for yourself:

Olympics 2012 from squintopera on Vimeo.

Aviator Project

Photo Credit JetsonGreen.com

JetsonGreen.com recently reported about the Aviator project in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.  What is most interesting about this project is not the size of the live/work lofts in development (11), but how they are making these green.  By collaborating with EcoSteel, they aim to build energy efficient structures from recycled regional materials.

The renderings of the design look very interesting and aesthetically pleasing.  Hopefully more of these Green projects take off across the nation.

Full Article about Aviator Energy Efficient Live/Work Units.