Home Office 2BR Layouts at Packard Row

A real home office needs a real room. A folding desk against the wall of a one-bedroom works fine for the occasional remote Tuesday. It doesn't hold up for someone full-time at home, and it definitely doesn't hold up for two people who both work remote. The second bedroom stops being optional.

The 2BR plans at Packard Row run from 838 to 1,022 square feet. Not all of them are the right shape for a serious office. Here's the breakdown, with measurements and a take on which plan fits which kind of work.

what a home office actually needs

Three things decide whether a room functions as an office. Real desk space first: at least four feet by two, more if you've got dual monitors or a vertical stand. Second, a chair that doesn't eat the room. A decent office chair has a five-pronged base around 30 inches across. That's floor it needs. Third, enough wall to put up a monitor mount, a short bookshelf, or whatever else your stack requires.

The floor of bedroom-as-office is roughly 10 by 10. You can fit a desk, a chair, and one bookcase. It's tight but it works. 12 by 12 is comfortable. 12 by 14 starts feeling like a proper office where a small couch or a second guest chair makes sense.

Light is the other variable. North-facing windows give steady daylight without screen glare. South-facing windows are bright but throw reflections on monitors around noon. Fixable with blinds, but worth knowing. The orientation at Packard Row varies by unit; ask on the tour.

the 2BR plans, ranked by office potential

Pine. 1,022 sq ft, the largest 2BR. The clear pick if the office is serious. Second bedroom is sized for a real workstation with room for a couch or guest chair. Sliding closet doors keep the floor plan clean. If you're a hybrid tech worker, an engineer who takes on-call from home, or half of a two-WFH household, this is the natural answer.

The living room holds its own too, so the office isn't the only place to sit. Friends can come over without your monitor stand being part of the dinner conversation. The second bedroom still fits a real desk, monitor, and chair, and the dining wall handles a third workstation when both of you are on video at once. Pine floor plan details.

Hemlock. 900 sq ft. The middle 2BR. Second bedroom works as an office for one person on standard knowledge work. Dual monitors fit. A desk-and-couch combo gets tight. Better for someone full-time WFH who isn't hosting client meetings or running a complex setup. Bedroom shapes vary a little across Hemlock units, so if the second bedroom is squarer (10x10 rather than 9x12), the room can absorb a slightly larger setup. Ask to see the plan during the tour. Hemlock floor plan details.

Chestnut. 838 sq ft, the smallest 2BR. The most efficient one. The second bedroom is small enough that it really wants to be a sleeping room. Fine as a guest room or for occasional remote days. If your work-from-home volume is two days a week or less, Chestnut still pencils. For full remote, look at Pine or Hemlock. Chestnut floor plan details.

when both of you work from home

The math shifts. You need a real office for one person and a workable spot for the other. The kitchen table becomes somebody's desk. The second bedroom becomes the other person's.

Clean version: both of you in the second bedroom. Pine at 1,022 sq ft fits a double desk along one wall, or two facing desks on opposite walls, though it gets close if either of you runs a triple-monitor setup.

Split version: one person in the second bedroom, the other in a corner of the living room or at the kitchen table. This needs decent acoustics and good headphones. Fine for heads-down writing or coding. Awful for video calls. If you both take calls regularly, putting both desks in the same room with good headphones beats splitting and bleeding sound through the wall.

If one person is video-call heavy (sales, customer success, leadership) and the other does focused work (engineering, writing, research), splitting between bedroom-office and a living-room corner works in any of the larger 2BRs.

building features that change the WFH day

Beyond the plan itself, a few building details matter.

Smart thermostats in every home keep the office at a working temperature without you fiddling. Pine's larger footprint benefits more from this than the smaller units. There's no upstairs/downstairs zoning issue here, but the scheduling still helps.

The rooftop solar powers common areas, and the electrical setup is new throughout. A serious workstation with multiple monitors and a dock won't trip breakers. Older buildings sometimes ship undersized circuits that fight modern home-office loads.

On-site EV charging matters specifically if one or both of you drive electric. When you're not commuting to an office, the charging happens at home. Having the charger downstairs is the setup you want.

Residential internet matters more than the apartment but is worth checking. Most Ann Arbor buildings carry multiple ISPs; ask which providers serve the building and what speeds residents actually pull.

what to do after move-in

The smaller-plan workarounds aren't dramatic. Take Chestnut (838 sq ft), discover the second bedroom is tighter than you expected, and swap: office becomes bedroom, bedroom becomes office. Some people work better in the smaller room and sleep better in the larger. The 2BR layouts at Packard Row are flexible that way.

The reverse is rare: taking Pine (1,022 sq ft) and finding you didn't need the extra room. Most residents who picked the larger 2BR for an office are using the space inside two months.

On furniture, the most common mistake is buying a desk that's too small. A real office desk should be 48 inches wide minimum, ideally 60. A 36-inch desk looks correct at IKEA and shrinks the second you put it in your room. Measure twice.

the commute half

A home office only matters part of the time if you're hybrid. The commute to Ann Arbor's tech corridor guide covers the in-office days: about twelve minutes to Google, ten to ProQuest, fifteen to Thomson Reuters. A workable home office plus a short commute is what keeps hybrid going past the first year.

touring with an office in mind

Bring the dimensions of your desk and chair. Walk into the second bedroom of whichever plan you're looking at and check whether your gear actually fits along the wall you'd actually use. The leasing team can pull floor-plan dimensions for any unit on the tour.

Book a tour and they'll route you through the larger 2BR plans so you can see Pine and Hemlock back to back.