Ready for a real home office? Here’s a prefab that doubles as a guest house

There comes a time in every work-from-home life where you find you need space. This isn’t new because there’s a pandemic. Anyone who has been working from home for any length of time, myself included, recognizes the productivity pattern. Virginia Woolf (who was WFH in 1925) wrote a whole book about it.

For the first few months, you blow productivity out of the water. Accustomed to working amid the distractions of an office, dealing with a commute, and the social life on the other side of your cubicle, working from home is a relief. You can focus. You aren’t worried about the kids. And you gain back huge blocks of time once wasted prepping to go to work.

But that fades. Or it morphs, really, into a kind of malaise where you can’t separate home from work. You can’t tell if you are productive. You get distracted easily. You forget to shower. You miss having a reason to put on pants.

I have been working from home for two decades. In my experience, you have two years of WFM before you have to find a real solution. Something better than an office in the living room. A speare room can work. But something that’s really separate is great.

I tend to rent an office for a couple of years every couple of years. But an office in the backyard would be the best of of both worlds. It has separation. But it’s handy enough that it’s easy to go home for lunch or to be available for kids or pets.

This home-in-a-box from BOXABL would make an amazing home office. It’s completely prefab — including everything from the kitchen to the bathroom — and could double as a guest room or Airbnb (if work from home doesn’t pan out.)

It shows up ready to unfold and set up. It’s designed for low-energy use. It has a kitchen and a bathroom. Everything is super efficient and modern. And you don’t have to hire a local contractor to build it.

It’s early day for BOXABL. They have, so far, launched only a small dwelling called the Casita. The company plans to offer add-ons so you can build a structure of any size — even a hotel — with BOXABLs.

You can reserve one for free or secure one for as little as a deposit of $200 and $250 a month. Or buy it outright for $49,500. Check it out.

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