Home working–or a hybrid variant–is here to stay. Some already did it pre-pandemic, others started when Covid hit and found it so convenient that they simply haven’t gone back the full five days a week, but mix it up. The flexibility that so many companies now offer is exciting – bar the debatably disastrous experiment that was WeWork (subject of the WeCrashed television series). The office model hadn’t changed significantly since the 18th century, when it was a place to handle masses of generated paperwork. 300 years and a digital revolution later, in most cases all that’s needed is a decent Wi-Fi connection. That said, after several years of typing from the kitchen table or negotiating Zoom backgrounds to disguise the fact that you’re actually in your bedroom, there is a conclusive consensus that the key to successful home working is a designated space – which can seem worrying if you’re already low on scope. The necessity has prompted a slew of interior tweaks and even entire house moves, and there is much to learn from those who have established their dream arrangement.
To note is that a home office does not need to look like an ‘office’. It doesn’t need a swivel chair (unless it’s a design classic and mid-century modern is your preferred style) and it doesn’t need a fax machine, a vast printer, or a desk with a hole in it for leads to come through – it doesn’t even need a desktop computer. The only necessity is that it should perfectly suit you and your way of working, and to do that it should also be inspiring – which a desk wedged into a bland spare bedroom is not. A room benefits from having a primary purpose. As a bonus, with it being entirely your own space, you can really go to town on the design, should you be so inclined.
The first thing to decide is where exactly you would like your office to be. Some – often those with young children, or those who can successfully block out chatter – like to be in the centre of things. My desk is in the sitting room because I want to be surrounded by my favourite paintings and books; I want to see and speak to my children as they come through the door from school, and it’s exceptionally handy for deliveries. Whenever I do get frustrated by the noise, I remind myself of the many great writers who had similar set ups, from Jane Austen to Daphne du Maurier. The artist Cornelia Parker has her studio in her house, and points out that it also means that you can work late into the night without feeling that you’re not at home.
Alexandra Tolstoy, on the other hand, has co-opted an outbuilding at her cottage from which to run her travel company and The Tolstoy Edit. “You have to walk outside to get to it, which I love, because it’s a haven. My cottage is so small that it can feel like we’re all on top of each other.” Nathalie Farman-Farma of Décors Barbares took on the studio next to her house, which has its own front door. The china designer and illustrator Alice Peto merged both approaches by commissioning a Shackadelic studio in her garden, “from where I can paint in peace, and keep one eye on the children when they’re outside”. Virginia Woolf also had a writing lodge in the garden, but it was too cold to work in over the winter months. Also, her husband stored apples in the loft and the noise he made sorting them out irritated her, and the dog would scratch, and that irritated her too. Mona Perlhagen and Jenny Simpson of Chelsea Textiles have circumvented that last issue in the design studio they created in the basement of their th18th century house in Oxfordshire – there are doors out to the garden which Jenny leaves open whenever she can, “so I don’t have to get up to let the dogs out”.
Next comes decoration. The desk is usually a crucial element. Unless, like a certain former Prime Minister, you prefer to work from bed, which is one way of getting around the spare bedroom-come-home office conundrum – please either embrace your inner Churchill and lose the desk, or swap the bed for a sofa bed (assuming that the room is your office more often than it is housing guests). Charlotte Heath-Bullock, founder and director of Cultural Communications (where clients include TEFAF, Masterpiece and LAPADA) works at an antique partners desk, sourced from a LAPADA dealer. “It’s a constant reminder of the ongoing adaptability and relevance of antiques,” she says. Alexandra uses an Arts and Crafts desk, which she’s dressed with an oil light found in a local antiques shop, paired with a lampshade made up with vintage Russian cotton. The artist and maker Bridie Hall commissioned a Donald Judd-esque drawing desk from William Smalley – designed to fit perfectly in its assigned space, in a little room off her sitting room. Positioning matters. I like to look out, Alexandra prefers to look in, and has put a stuffed goose she fell in love with in the window facing her – “I get so distracted – a room with a view is the last thing I need”.
When it comes to colour, both Bridie and Cornelia like white – “I think all artists do,” says Cornelia. Disproving the theory is Alice’s studio, which features orange and white-striped walls that tone with a coral-painted dresser holding her similarly boldly-patterned china. Alexandra has painted her office walls in Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler's ‘Hambleden Yellow’ (available from Fenwick & Tilbrook), and the woodwork in a dark brown gloss, “which is what was traditionally always used in cottages on estates, so it’s consistent with the style of the house”. She’s brought in further colour with a large patchwork, “again, we’ve got lots in the house, but they’re all English or Welsh and this one is from Uzbekistan”. It hangs on the wall, overlaid with paintings by SJ Axelby of the embroidered Uzbek coats that Alexandra collects (and wears), framed by Benedict Foley. A piece of antique Ikat that she found was, at the suggestion of Emma Burns – Managing Director of Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler – turned into a ruffled blind, which adds texture. “It’s wonderful to come out of my very English cottage and enter this whole other world of Russia and Central Asia,” says Alexandra.
Evidently her children love it too, for one of them can often be found curled up in the armchair, which is upholstered in Colefax & Fowler’s Fuschia chintz, reading a book; Alexandra has stocked the shelves with their favourites – Biggles, Just William and Mallory Towers. Nathalie Farman-Farma’s children occasionally borrow her studio, which is comfortably full of sofas and chairs upholstered in her exquisite fabrics, and hosts much of her collection of folk art, for the odd party. It may seem confusing to mention this, having suggested earlier in the article that dual-function is less than ideal, but there is a difference between dual-function and secondary function. Get the office right, and it will be such a pleasant place to be that options for the latter will abound.
