Home offices – a mixture of ancient and modern

Using the old in modern home offices.

Near the bottom of the Living Room Home Offices Gallery is the photo of Phil McMullen’s new workspace. He has had some work done on his house and now works in the former dining room, which leads into a beautifully light and airy kitchen.

What particularly caught my attention was what Phil calls ‘the historic / contemporary dichotomy of my busy life’, and he goes on to describe how much he enjoys the contrast of older things in his office with state of the art equipment.

I’m sure this is a quality we all have in our home offices, whether we think about it or not. Many of us live in houses built generations ago to accommodate a very different lifestyle and yet we adapt them successfully for 21st century home working. No doubt the original owners would be amazed if they could see what’s happening in their rooms now!

We live on the top floor of a converted sawmill, and although no trace remains of the original purpose of the building, in our home offices we have furniture from my grandfather’s farmhouse cheek by jowl with metal filing cabinets and Apple computers. I keep spare photocopying paper in a tin box with a blue interior that belonged to him, and often wonder what he kept in it.

Other home office photos in the galleries include a studio in a building where coffins were made, and a B&B kitchen in a converted barn. Who knows what puzzled ghosts hover around today’s home workers as they go about their business?

How do you mix the old and the new in your home office? We’d love to see if you’d like to send in a photo and text – information about submission is at the bottom of the gallery pages.

And check out Buckboard Hill Interiors for some glossy old and new home offices to drool over!