I’m not going to criticise the authors choices because each situation is unique. But if you’re both working from home then I do wonder if your money is better spent moving out of the Bay Area and thus somewhere you can have a 3 or 4 bedroom house. Rather than trying to suffer through an ineffective home office.

This is what I did. I had two young children (still young but not as young as when this anecdote happened) and we ended up moving to accommodate for working from home. Before we moved I was finding my home office space (a literal garage) was freezing during the winter and boiling during the summer. And like the author, it was affecting my ability to work. So my options were go back to the office, or buy something more suitable for working from home.

It also came with the bonus of a bigger garden for our kids to play in.