A spiffed-up home office is a luxury that’s fast becoming a necessity. The rise of the “free agent” lifestyle in the ’90s created a home-office boom, and now cool gadgets are getting cheaper. Consultant Terri Lonier of Working Solo says too many home offices are thrown together without a plan. “You set up a table, put the computer on it and find a chair, but you never step back and say, ‘Is this the best way it could be functioning?’ "

Start with new technology. Flat-screen computer monitors have dropped below $400 in the United States and free up precious desk space. Wireless keyboard-and-mouse packages go for as little as $69 and eliminate desktop cord tangles. If space is really tight, consider a notebook computer. And trade up to DSL or a cable modem from a dial-up service.

Don’t stop there. Paint the walls; move the desk toward a window. Add cheap shelving or cardboard file boxes to a closet. “The only things on the floor should be a chair, furniture and a wastebasket,” says Neal Zimmerman, author of “At Work at Home: Design Ideas for Your Home Workplace.” But experts say it’s worth spending more on two essentials: good lighting and an ergonomic chair. Says Lonier: “You may spend more time on that chair than in your bed.” Another tip: in addition to a desk chair, add a comfy chair for reading.

You don’t have to break the bank to create a functional, stylish space. Interior designer Laurie Hickson-Smith recently created an office in her Mississippi home for less than $1,000. She painted the walls a warm shade of wheat, added stainless-steel shelving, a hardwood desk, architect lamps and a white enamel drafting table (her big splurge at $400). With her first baby due any day, Hickson-Smith is thinking about how to separate her work and family life. One of her clients actually installed a padlock on her home-office door. “She wanted to make sure the end of the workday was the end of the workday,” Hickson-Smith says.

For Hughes’s new office, designers brought in a $399 Caper chair from Herman Miller (it’s less corporate-looking than the ubiquitous, pricier Aeron), had electricians replace a harsh fluorescent fixture with softer recessed lighting and painted the walls a soothing yellow. Goodbye dial-up service, hello $40-a-month cable Internet access. Hughes rejected some of the designers’ ideas–futuristic lighting, wall-mounted storage cubicles–and instead opted for $1,000 worth of simple Mission furniture from the L.L. Bean catalog. He spent $40 on wire shelving for the closet; that space, along with a rolling file cabinet, left his office “organized and uncluttered,” Hughes says. The only downside: now there’s no excuse for not getting more work done.