This is a guest post by Dave Rupert. Thank you!
Working from home is one of the greatest perks of my job. It allows me to spend more time with my family as well as maintain great productivity in my own little space.
With the birth of my first child the noise level and interruptions slowly billowed, so we built a "shed" in my backyard. I considered joining a coworking space but, doing the math over 5 years, renting a desk and building my own space were basically the same cost. I also have special podcasting needs that are harder to accomodate.
I also hate commuting. Lots.
Inside my office I have a couch and some instruments, but overwhelmingly the greatest feature in my office is the MEGADESK. MEGADESK is weird but I've grown attached to it. It's two IKEA butcher block desktops side-by-side. It allows for Paravel or (rare) visitors to get some work done in the shed. It also allows for me to spread out if I need to; I've also recently grown attached to Post-It Note kanban boards for daily tasks.
Currently I have two workstations set up: Mac and PC.
I recently switched to Windows, so my primary machine is a Surface Pro 3 docked and connected to a LG 34UC97 curved ultrawide display. It's not "retina" but I love this display; it's a giant desktop, just like my MEGADESK. I've got that display sitting on an Ugmonk-inspired IKEA hack.
The Mac setup is pretty depressing right now. A lonely 15" Retina Macbook Pro sits attached to an old 24" Cinema Display. Hooked up to that is my Oculus Rift. I'm not doing much with it right now, but I'm interested in the future of WebVR.
The shed has been great for my work/life balance with my family. A dedicated space means I can leave work at the end of the day and ignore the late night notifications that attempt to seduce me. My house is laptop-free and I like it that way.
Next steps for the shed are building out a little Mobile Device Lab in addition to my unending quest to improve WiFi speeds.
