Your clients hear your office before they hear you.
There's more to it though, because almost nobody considers what their room sounds like.
That's the half of your video presence you've never managed.
A hard floor, bare walls, a desk marooned in the middle of an empty room: it all produces echo. On a call, echo reads as empty. Empty reads as temporary. Temporary reads as someone who hasn't quite set up properly yet, which is the last thing a senior expert wants a new client to hear in the first thirty seconds.
Sound made the 2026 essentials lists this year. Decorilla and Sierra Living Concepts are both naming acoustics a core part of the home office setup now, not merely a nice-to-have, mostly because so many of us take client calls from rooms that were never built for calls in the first place.
I've sat on calls where the person was clearly excellent at what they did but the room made them sound like they were phoning in from an empty corridor.
The words were right. The sound undercut them.
Your client doesn't think 'bad acoustics.' They just feel, faintly, that something's off, though they can't quite put their finger on it.
That feeling attaches to you, not to the room.
The fix is soft surfaces. Something textured behind you: a bookcase, a curtain, an upholstered panel.
A rug helps if the floor's hard. Even a throw over the back of a chair just out of frame does real work. Soft things absorb the echo that hard things bounce around.
This doesn't mean you need foam tiles or a studio. It takes enough soft surface to stop the room ringing.
One thing to do this week
Record twenty seconds of yourself talking, the way you would on a call. Then play it back with your eyes closed: listening, not watching.
If you hear an echo, or a hollowness behind your voice, or even the hum of the room, that's what every client has been hearing under your expertise. Add one soft surface and record again.
Find your zone
Your call presence runs through the microphone as much as the camera, and most people only ever manage the camera. There are many aspects of an effective home office that often just need an additional item or a tweak, to get your work space to work as hard as you do.
Not sure which zone you should start with first?
The workspace quiz takes two minutes: dezyna.com/quiz
Trade Secrets
A quick read on what the design world's talking about this week, and whether it's worth your attention.
The colours that date a room, named.
Homes & Gardens called out cool icy greys, flat beige and taupe, and the muted grey-sage that was everywhere as the shades reading old in 2026.
The replacements run warmer: richer browns and warmer whites, with deeper saturated greens taking over from the grey-sages. If your wall hasn't changed since you moved in, it's probably on the first list, and it sits behind you on every call.
Working from home is getting lonelier.
Smithsonian and Fast Company both ran pieces on rising isolation among people who work from home. The reflex is to send everyone back to the office. I'd argue the better lever is design: a room that gives something back instead of only taking from you, a corner of the home that isn't all output.
The corporates are copying home.
Steelcase's latest Work Better issue, ‘A New Mindset’, is big-firm workplace design chasing comfort and belonging.
Worth noticing, because that's exactly what a good home setup can already deliver, without the millions.
Also on my radar…
Dezeen's 2026 trend report reads the year as quieter and warmer, craftsmanship over fast decor.
That's the register a work zone should sit in.
Ergonomics and movement are being treated as the 2026 home-office baseline now, not an upgrade.
South Africa's work-from-home proposal is back in the conversation, a tailwind for every home-based business here.
Before you go
If it's useful, forward it to one person who sounds great on calls and doesn't know their room is working against them.
Or hit the button below and tell me what your twenty-second recording sounded like.
I read every reply.
Let's design the spaces that fit the life you're actually living, not the one on the vision board.
Chat soon,
N