Home Office

WASHINGTON — If you're one of the millions of homeowners and renters who work or run a business from the place you live, here's some good news on taxes: The Internal Revenue Service wants to make it easier for you to file for deductions on the business-related use of your home. Rather than the complicated 43-line form you now have to fill out to claim a write-off — the instructions alone take up four pages of text and involve computations such as depreciation and utility bill expense allocations — the IRS has come up with a much simpler option: What it calls a "safe harbor" method that allows you to measure the square footage of your business space and apply for a deduction.

In the old days, worlds collided. Artists slammed incompatible realities together, pitting high against low, painting against screen printing, and functionalism against art for art's sake. Today, that's impossible because the borders between art and design, as well as craft, entertainment, recreation, activism, and leisure have blurred beyond recognition. Worlds do not collide so much as they overlap, intermingle, cross-pollinate. At Various Small Fires, Anna Sew Hoy lets contemporary art and boutique couture segue into each other, often creating intriguing hybrids that are both approachable and alien, their nothing-specialness abuzz with a subtle charge of strangeness.

Kitchen cabinets for counter bases. Attractive and inexpensive bases for counter-height office work surfaces can be made from prefabricated, off-the-shelf kitchen cabinets. Deep drawers provide storage for bulky items, cupboard shelves are convenient for stationery storage, and shallow drawers are good for pens, staples, scissors and other small items. Lay a door blank or laminated countertop across two or more cabinets, stain them oak or walnut, or paint them to match the rest of the office.

Architect Don Dimster and his brother, filmmaker Dennis Dimster, lived together for more than a decade, migrating among a 1924 bungalow on Electric Avenue in Venice that they renovated, two apartments in back of the house as well as a pair of cottages on San Juan Avenue they also fixed up. "It was a bit like the musical chairs game - only with houses," Don said. So it wasn't a surprise when the brothers moved together into new 3,800-square-foot Venice digs designed by Don - only this time with their wives, Lisa and Noreen.

To calculate the maximum electrical power requirements of your home office, locate the power rating label that is affixed somewhere on every piece of electrically powered equipment and total the watts or amperes. For lighting, read the wattage rating on bulbs, or for fluorescent, read the label on the fixture. Convert all power requirements to amperes by dividing watts by 110. Amperes are more convenient for this purpose because circuit breakers are rated in amperes.

Self-employed people, doctors, small-business owners and others seeking to take the elusive home office tax deduction may find the going a bit easier, thanks to a recent U.S. Tax Court ruling. But the rules are still tough, and you'll have to be careful if you want to avoid triggering an audit. If you qualify, a home office deduction can be quite beneficial. Homeowners can write off a percentage of depreciation, utilities and other operating expenses.

Should your employer be responsible for your office safety if you're a telecommuter? The issue of just who's liable when your home work site violates health and safety codes heated up earlier this month when a Labor Department advisory said that employers are responsible for making sure that at-home workers have ergonomically correct furniture, proper lighting, adequate ventilation and more.

Early predictions were that working at home would give people more scope to be themselves. To a degree, that's true. But more than that, one magazine editor says, the attending technology has created a new worker category: one who works any time, any place the mood strikes. In the October issue of Metropolis magazine in New York, two dozen leaders in business and the arts were asked where they do their best thinking.

HOME offices are often a mess. Wires tangled like spaghetti on the floor. Computer monitors stuck on top of tables, cables rolling off the sides, more hardware stuffed underneath. But a simple gadget may be all you need to take control of those wayward wires, says architectural hardware designer Doug Mockett. His firm, Doug Mockett & Co., with a website at www.mockett.

Every day, home-based entrepreneurs are challenged with trying to present a professional image to the outside world. It's tough trying to woo a potential customer over the telephone when your 4-year-old son is screaming for a Popsicle. Despite the obstacles presented by everyday life, successful home-based business owners use a variety of techniques to maintain an aura of professionalism.

WASHINGTON — If you're one of the millions of homeowners and renters who work or run a business from the place you live, here's some good news on taxes: The Internal Revenue Service wants to make it easier for you to file for deductions on the business-related use of your home. Rather than the complicated 43-line form you now have to fill out to claim a write-off — the instructions alone take up four pages of text and involve computations such as depreciation and utility bill expense allocations — the IRS has come up with a much simpler option: What it calls a "safe harbor" method that allows you to measure the square footage of your business space and apply for a deduction.

Pauline Friedman Phillips , who wrote the "Dear Abby" advice column for decades using the name Abigail Van Buren, died Wednesday in Minneapolis at age 94. She had been afflicted with Alzheimer's. Her advice columns were collected in a number of books, many of which are available now on EBay. An autographed copy of the 1958 " Dear Abby " collection is listed at $29.99. A well-worn edition of 1983's " The Best of Dear Abby " can be purchased for as little as $5. You can get " Dear Abby on Planning Your Wedding " (1988, $11)

As part of a criminal bribery probe, the Los Angeles County district attorney's office served search warrants at the homes and campus offices of two high-ranking Pasadena City College officials Thursday morning, authorities said. Investigators removed documents and computers belonging to Richard Van Pelt, vice president of administrative services, and Alfred Hutchings, the college's facilities services supervisor, said Dave Demerjian, head of the district attorney's Public Integrity Division.

What defines a political artist? Ideology? Activism? Revolutionary fervor? The question preoccupied me recently as I spent time rereading plays by Václav Havel, the dissident playwright turned Czech president, who died late last year. And the answer I discovered in "The Memorandum," "The Increased Difficulty of Concentration" and "Largo Desolato" had less to do with platforms and protests than I remembered. In fact, the only programmatic agenda I came upon was an unwavering defense of the individual, which just so happens to be the only agenda that will never grow obsolete.

Faced with providing service for ever more data-hungry cellphones, telecommunications carriers are in a nonstop race costing billions of dollars to boost the capacities of their networks. To handle the heavy volume of video, music and Web pages that smartphone users are downloading, office buildings, strip malls, condominiums, schools, churches and just about every other type of structure — including water towers and freeway overpasses — are being pressed into service as cell signal relay stations, industry lingo for cell towers.

A sweaty afternoon torpor falls on the vast hotel lobby, as if someone had pumped a mist of sleeping gas through the air conditioning. Men slump beneath garish lime jungle murals, mouths hanging open. Outside, a cooling breeze blows off the lagoon, drifting over palm trees, thatched gazebos, tennis courts (unused), a pool complex with extravagant fountains and sprays (none working). A large black lizard with a bright orange head does push-ups. The waiter at the lobby cafe stares slack-jawed at a stack of dirty dishes and plates, and is rarely seen waiting.

Computer consultant Rod Roesch got a comfortable new waterfront office with lots of windows and good ventilation, not by climbing the corporate ladder, but by remodeling his home. Although home offices are usually achieved by converting a spare bedroom or corner of the family room, when the business is in the home, offices seem to eventually require remodeling. The reasons cited most often for remodeling are the need for greater comfort, privacy, room for equipment and space to accommodate work.

With the tax season at its height, the Supreme Court said Monday that it would decide a vital tax question for self-employed professionals and business persons: Can they take a deduction for a "home office" if they work away from home but are required to do substantial paperwork at home? The answer, which will not be known until next year, could affect hundreds of thousands of taxpayers whose only office is at home.

He built the largest stock brokerage in Los Angeles, and his name adorns one of the city's most distinctive high-rises. He's worth tens of millions of dollars. So why can't Edward Wedbush manage to fix his roof? The peeling shingles atop his one-story stucco house in Ladera Heights are covered in blue and black tarpaulin. The bandaged roof has been an eyesore for years in a neighborhood of carefully tended mid-century homes. Neighbors say they've written letters, passed along bids from contractors and even lined up buyers for the home, all to no avail.

46 — percentage of architecture firms reporting an increased demand for home offices 3 — percentage of architecture firms reporting a decreased demand for home offices (51% reported no change in demand) 3.3 — millions of Americans who have a formal arrangement with an employer to do some work from home as part of the paid workweek 10.2 — millions of Americans who take work home, informally, without additional pay 7 — average number of hours worked at home per week without additional pay Sources: American Institute of Architects, Bureau of Labor Statistics