I have an office.

Which, you might be saying, you know. I work and all. Work means an office.

But no! No, while I have an office which I must dress up for, in which I must wear tights and speak in staccato, I also have a home office.

And even better – I have my own office.

It’s shocking how much I love it, too. Shocking. I’ve not had a space that is all my own since…well, since I was single and in my early 20′s. That long. Every single inch of space in a family home is used for family. We’re not rich, we don’t have endless rooms in the house. Every room has a purpose.

That being said, this room – which is my room – has quite a history.

When the house was originally built, this room wasn’t here. The house is 100 years old, and this portion of the house didn’t exist.

In the 1980′s though, a hideous extension was built onto the front of the house and this room was the master bathroom. It was a strange room which required you to step down into it to access it. It was badly constructed, as the downstairs floor was at a slope and this room was also not built straight. When we did the extension, we found things had to be specifically fitted to the room due to it not being quite square.

This is it during construction – the window was punched into the wall and the bathroom ripped out (click to embiggen the photos).

Then a new floor was put in, the plumbing ripped out, and the wiring done (photo taken from the downstairs entryway).

This little room became Jeff’s room. A very small but very perfect amount of space for a 10 year old.

However, the family grew. Jeff was going to be moving into Melissa’s room and Melissa was going off to uni (only then she didn’t, but ignore that step). Jeff would be sharing a space with a bedroom that would also function as an office. Someone would be going into that office, while the other person would get the former bathroom/bedroom.

Alastair told me he genuinely didn’t mind if I wanted the tiny office as my own.

He didn’t have to say it twice.

I moved in.

This is where my office is located (the photo is from last year, there are no lovely flowers growing in the windoboxes…yet). I’ve ringed it in red, of course it’s not marked out in red like a giant bullseye (I hope).

First, the room needed painting, which we chose a lovely dove grey color to paint it in. The twins helped, as ever.

That photo should give a good indication of the size of the room – a single bed fits snugly in it lengthwise, from head to foot touching the walls. You couldn’t get a double bed in the room. It’s honestly that small.

Since it’s that small, Alastair built in the desk, using a kitchen worktop from Ikea.

And as Alastair built in LAN into all the rooms of the house, I have lightning quick internet and a VoIP phone to boot.

The chair and curtains are from Ikea (I sewed them myself! And it shows!) The desk bench is also from Ikea, and there is a bookshelf from Ikea just to the right (which I have no photo of as it’s kinda’ messy right now, I’m going to make a cover for the bookshelf to make it look tidier).

The rest of the room, though, is all me.

I have the antique time clock in there, graced by both Danbo, my quirky frog lamp and the Mario Bros. mushroom.

On another wall I have a bulletin board of various bits (some elements are blacked out for a reason!).

I have my three favorite films up in frames in the office too –

The top one is from Blade Runner, and it’s an original Japanese film poster I found on the web (I absolutely love that film.) The bottom one is the Czech Republic promotion of Lost in Translation that I picked up while in Prague.

And of course, if I’m going to frame my favorite films, I can’t leave the big one out.

In the smaller window I have my cow clock from the States (I had one when I was a kid) and the yellow duck I brought home as my souvenir from Whistler, in 2007.

I have the chair from the twins’ baby days in there.

Above the chair is a 1920′s mirror Alastair and I bought about 8 years ago.

And there is one wall with some very special things on it – handprints that the twins made on 18 June, 2011 at 3 years old, placed on either side of one I made when I was three years old at 18 June, 1977. It’s bottomed out by a photo of the twins in bluebells by my favorite frame (hi H!), and topped by a framed shadowbox of the original Lemonheads (I still love those hats, you know…).

It’s my office. It’s a lovely (and very full) space. A deeply personal space which I relax in completely and utterly.

-S.