REGINA -- With many people forced to stay home due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Munro Homes is building a new show home with a convertible office space inside.

It’s the first time the company has designed a work space that can be changed into something else in the future. It decided to try the idea after seeing a growing demand for it in 2020.

“We have it future proofed that we can convert it back into a bedroom. Let’s say the person that buys the show home isn’t working from home, needs the third bedroom, we can convert it for them,” Munro Homes President Colin Chorneyko said.

Other customers are building new homes with larger sized home offices, so it feels more like a workplace.

“People are realizing that if they are working from home they need something that’s comfortable that they’re going to want to spend a lot of time in, because really you are staying in that office your whole day,” Chorneyko said.

The office can sometimes be for the client’s children, but customers want to make sure that they don’t have to do work from their kitchen table.

“In this past year we’ve certainly seen everybody that we’re sitting down at the design table with indicating that they need an office space,” Munro Homes Project Consultant Heather McGinnis said.

Location is important. McGinnis said for some, having it far from the kitchen or living space helps them remain on task and breakup work life balance.

“My home office is at the very far end of my house away from everything, so when I decide to leave work for the day I can close the door,” Heather McGinnis, Project Consultant, Munro Homes

McGinnis said it all depends on how much work and how much confidentiality is involved, but for clients with patient based work like physicians, having the office near the front entrance is key.

“They do want it steps away from the front door, because what they don’t want it is to have people coming to their home and having to walk through the whole house to get to their office,” McGinnis said.