Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Working from the common house or other common spaces?

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

I forgot to mention that we have always had a “back up” office. In 2000 many of 
our residents did not have computers at home and smartphones were not a thing 
yet. If we wanted to expect everyone to read email, we needed to have a 
computer available for them to do that. And we wanted a computer so people 
didn’t have to own their own—many just used one at their offices but others had 
no office to go to. The commitment was to sharing equipment so we have pretty 
much always had a 3-1 printer — copier, printer, fax. People who use the 
printer exclusively or do large printing or copying projects are asked to 
donate paper and toner. The advantage of having heavy users is that they also 
maintain and troubleshoot the equipment.

But while some do work on that computer often, the room is small and not a 
reservable or exclusive space. People use the printer from home, the guest room 
supplies are stored there, the DVDs are there, etc. People need access so are 
in and out.

We have high-speed internet throughout the community so we have traditionally 
supported the people who work from home. We upgraded the system during the 
Pandemic because we have two people who have to upload large amounts of data a 
couple of times a week. A heavy gamer has his own modem because he wants 
control over the speed and his time. There may be one or two others who have 
their own modem but almost all the 43 units use the common network. We have 
wifi that extends the reach outside and down the green, people use each other's 
wifis, and each unit has 4-5 hardwired ethernet connections. There are 
connections and wifi in the common house. This has been a huge, huge advantage 
as the world has changed so much in the last 10-15 years. We all have 
business-class service that is less expensive than a home modem. People are 
giving up their landline phones.

Sharon

> On Jun 6, 2023, at 10:35 AM, Sharon Villines via Cohousing-L <cohousing-l 
> [at] cohousing.org> wrote:
> 
>> On Jun 5, 2023, at 7:14 PM, Marilyn Kakudo <mkakudo [at] comcast.net> wrote:
>> 
>> We’re having difficulty matching our limited inventory of units to the needs 
>> and resources of these potential member households. One solution might be to 
>> provide a small office or workspace in our common house that is shareable or 
>> schedule-able in some way. Is this something your cohousing community has 
>> done or tried?
> 
> Regularly "forever” but with a great increase during the pandemic we have had 
> people working in the CH. There are several areas where they work — the 
> living room, a corner of the dining room, the office, the game room, and the 
> guest rooms. Some just like to get out of their units and others need a quiet 
> place to take or make a Zoom call. During the pandemic especially the guest 
> rooms were empty so very available. There are even more areas of the CH where 
> a quiet corner could be found. One person did a job interview on Zoom in the 
> "Take It Or Leave It” corner at the top of the third-floor stairs.
> 
> With a laptop and a smartphone there is no need to leave things “set up,” so 
> they don’t move in or occupy the space exclusively. There has been some 
> pushback when someone tried to use the space continuously — it’s not always 
> pleasant to go to the common house and see the same person every day all day 
> and hear them making phone calls, etc. no matter how nice they are. Meeting 
> with clients, agents, brokers, etc., on a continuous basis would require a 
> room that could be closed off and a separate entrance, I think.
> 
> We have a small room that we have called the game room (Legos, Wii, video 
> games) that pre-pandemic we were planning to set up as a place where teens 
> could study. By now those teens are in college but when I started thinking 
> about what the room might be used for now, I think we would have the same 
> usage by adults working at home. The room would probably have 2-3 card 
> table-sized folding tables,  a 2-seat sofa, and a wall-mounted television.
> 
> We have also had situations where the nanny took care of the children in the 
> common house and the adults worked at home. A baby who was a light sleeper 
> slept better in the playroom or the guestrooms than at home with parents 
> talking and phones ringing. Another nanny cared for 2 toddlers all the time 
> in the CH. She would also take them out walking and to the library so they 
> weren’t constantly there but that was her base. The parents delivered the 
> kids to her there in what she called “the lobby."
> 
> During the Pandemic we had 2 households that formed a bubble and the parents 
> traded off watching the kids in the playroom or on the playground. They were 
> even homeschooling part of the time. Another household with 2 children had a 
> grandmother who came for several hours 2-3 days a week and used the playroom 
> to do crafts with them.
> 
> In at least one case, a music teacher used a spare room in someone else's 
> unit to give lessons. Another wanted to rent a room for her office and for 
> her parents to stay as guests occasionally — I’m not sure she found it but it 
> could have been possible. 
> 
> Except for renting a room, none of these situations involved reserving the 
> space exclusively with no end in sight. 
> 
> Sharon
> ----
> Sharon Villines
> Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
> http://www.takomavillage.org
> 
> 
> 
> 
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