About 40 percent of working-age adults are working from home because of the virus, a figure that is higher among the wealthy, according to the Pew Research Center. With roommates now doubling as co-workers, some have tried boosting morale in their new home offices — which, in many cases, is simply the living room.

Naomi Nagel and Michelle Topping, both 26, said that after a week of wearing their pajamas all day in their Atlanta apartment, they decided they needed to do something that would force them to change clothes — and lift their moods. The best friends created a “spirit month” calendar with a different theme for each day — including “ugly sweater” day and “fancy Friday” — and the effort has caught on among their friends, who have sent photographs of themselves following along.

When Ms. Topping was laid off from her job at a law firm during the pandemic, the spirit calendar and photographs gave her something to look forward to each morning.

“It was really helpful,” she said. “Losing my job sucks, but this is a little bit of a distraction.”

The altered state of living has also put more novel living arrangements to the test, such as that of Kristin Accorsi, 33, who lives in Freehold, N.J., with her husband, her former husband and a child from each marriage.

When the pandemic grew more severe in March, she told her former husband, who usually spends about two nights a week in the house’s “in-law suite,” that he should go to his other apartment in Brooklyn and hunker down. But within a few nights, after watching his roommates traipse in and out of the apartment and as cases spiked in New York City, he decided to return to the family home, she said.

Since then, there have been a few sticking points: Ms. Accorsi, a teacher who also writes a blog about her living situation, said that her former husband had a tendency to talk on speakerphone, for example, and that she had been doing much of her family’s dishes and laundry.