The crisis would mean the opportunity to invest in a home that will be vital at the time of retirement or for vacation.

As the remote work experiment drags on, here are five critical things you should be doing every day to maximize productivity. Six months ago, it would have seemed wild that so many of us would now be working from home with no clear end in sight, joining work calls from our home offices and kitchen tables. Read Full Story

The FDA would prefer that you not do it this way. You can now purchase a COVID-19 test to take at home, although the FDA is not officially on board. Read Full Story

Last week, several companies announced they would launch home testing for COVID-19. After the FDA said the tests weren’t authorized, many have been forced to pull their products. Last week, several direct-to-consumer health companies announced they would start selling do-it-yourself, home-based coronavirus tests. But the Food and Drug Administration made it clear that these “fraudulent test kits” were not authorized, forcing home test makers to change their plans. Read Full Story

What would it take for every household to fully decarbonize? A typical American household runs on fossil fuels: natural gas for heat, hot water, and the kitchen stove, gas or diesel to power the cars in the driveway, and coal and natural gas still powering the majority of the electricity flowing in the home, even as the amount of wind and solar on the grid quickly grows. Read Full Story

Conventional wisdom said extroverts would find work-from-home isolation challenging. Turns out that’s not who’s having the hardest time. Since offices shut down and so many people went home to work at the beginning of the pandemic, many have been worried about the extroverts. How would these individuals, who get their energy from being around others, cope with the isolation? How would they manage without watercooler chitchat and face-to-face interaction? Read Full Story

An accessible bathroom doesn’t need to look like a nursing home. There’s nothing wrong with the plastic benches and extra handrails that fill the bathrooms of older adults; such tools are vital for someone’s safety when balancing in a slippery environment. But with all the effort people put into designing their bathrooms, it would be nice if accessibility could simply blend in—so that your home feels more like a home than a doctor’s office. Read Full Story

You would think that working remotely would make bothersome colleagues less bothersome, but that’s not the case. Admit it—you have at least one colleague who annoys you. Back when you were all in the office together, just seeing them would set your teeth grinding. So you’d think that working remotely would make it easier to deal with annoying colleagues. After all, they can’t swoop down on you when you’re working from home. Read Full Story

Whatever your situation, here are some home office tips from ergonomic experts on how to improve your workspace. After several weeks of working from home, I’m starting to feel it. My back is playing up, my neck and shoulders are tight, and my legs are getting increasingly more restless. My makeshift remote work setup consists of a little desk and a dining table chair—not exactly the ergonomic home office setup the health and safety department would recommend. Read Full Story

Ikea’s new line of candles aims to evoke nostalgia and memories of your childhood home. The first scent I remember is my father’s. As a small child, I would embrace him when he came home from the office and nuzzle into his tweed blazer, which smelled faintly of leather, tobacco, and an earthiness that’s hard to put into words. To me, this smell will forever be associated with home. I sometimes wonder what scent memories my 4-year-old daughter is forming right now. Read Full Story