I work full time from home although I do travel to visit clients from time to time as required. The room I use was meant to be a dining room - though it is too small to be a proper dining room. It is only 9 feet by 17 feet and has 2 doors (kitchen and living room access) taking up valuable wall space. Luckily in my industry I don't need too much in the way of filing cabinets, so just 2 do the job. I have 2 desks in there plus a number of other basic office style cabinets I bought flat pack years ago. The room also has to house my tools (a lot) and I tend to keep my bicycles in there too, which I shouldn't as it makes it overcrowded. There is a store for the bicycles but it isn't convenient to use. If I have visitors then I either put the bicycles away in advance or we use the living room, which is more common. My wife works in an office and our son is grown up and not living here, so no clashes there. For most of my work I simply need a notebook on wifi and a mobile phone but the office has a couple of pcs, a multipurpose all in one colour laser printer and a shredder. The second desk is used as a work bench when working on stuff that needs testing and/or repairing. I deal in high tech small equipment. No stock is held, which is good for cash flow and for keeping security risks down. I love working from home due to convenience. I deal with companies all around the world so working from home means I can leave off and when I need to connect in real time to people the other side of the world I just walk back through into the office again and everything is there. To me that is better than having an office and then either having to go back there for a 10pm video call or have it from home and find the details I need are in the office. What I dislike is the lack of company. It can be lonely working from home. My wife works in a large company and they have all sorts of facilities for the staff. Gym, squash courts, room for health classes (yoga, Tai Chi, Chi Qong etc.), cafeteria and so on. They also have all sorts of clubs and other team activities. I miss that side of office life, but then not many get to work in such large office communities. The setup works for me but I don't think working at home would suit everyone. You have to know yourself quite well before making the change.

We inherited our aga with our house ten years ago, it was I think, built in the 80's and we had it re-conditioned, it was a violent red but I had it re-enamelled in anthracite and it looked lovely. I have to be honest, some years later we put in under floor heating throughout the house and the kitchen suddenly became a furnace! Being of "that age" suddenly hot flushes required me to vacate the kitchen and stand outside even in the middle of a freezing night, so off went the underfloor heating in the kitchen. I initially went to aga classes and I have to say it was really worth learning how to use the thing correctly. Such as never using the hot plates if food could be cooked in the ovens, maintaining the oven temperature for much longer. Methods, such as pouring off the water vegetables were in once boiling was reached, and then putting them in the simmering oven to steam, or using the floor of the roasting oven to fry. I have to say it was an education having one, and yes all the things people love about them are true, BUT having installed a new green heating system it all seemed so wrong, its original purpose was to heat a poorly heated farmhouse with no gas supply, and served a multitude of purposes. I know in its past it has kept lambs warm and hatched chicks, it was great at drying out wet clothes and laundry that wouldn't dry anywhere else. I even managed to save a chicken keeping it warm next to the aga in a box all night. When we have had power cuts the storage system of the aga lets you cook for a few days with the residual heat, though the temperature does drop so you have to be careful. We don't live like that anymore, power cuts thankfully are not as frequent, and although we are a farm we have a well insulated house (finally) a good heating system and I don't want to be dependant on oil, burning it constantly seems rather pointless and wasteful if it isn't serving other purposes, it doesn't really cook evenly (probably due to its age) and then there is the expense of regular servicing. So these are it's last few months. I have now ordered an electric range cooker with an induction hob. I did look at the electric aga dual control and came to these conclusions in my long drawn out considerations whether to have another one or not, I am now amazed I even considered it - I think mainly pressure from grown up children who like to lean over it constantly, they certainly don't cook on it! 1. They are on all the time, if you turn them down to tick over you can't use the hot plate for boiling, they have to be turned on independently and take about 8 minutes to heat up. 2. It is quicker and cheaper to boil water in the electric kettle in that case. 3. I use a toaster as I can cook four slices at once if required. 4. I still have to turn it off in the summer it is way too hot in our kitchen, which means.... 5. We have to have a small oven and two ring induction hob as well to take over - that to me completely defeats the purpose. 6. Keeping it on all the time seems rather like having an electric oven and keeping that running all the time - would I do that? No I think not. 7. I still can't use the underfloor heating put in at great expense! 8. The house is warm enough to dry washing without using the tumble dryer all the time in the winter. The aga was however, magnificent at drying knitwear. I understand the new systems are supposed to be much more economical and I think for people that really love them they do have a place. I also think there is a lot written about aga owners that is unfair and sometimes written by people who may not actually own one or know how to cook on them. That being said everyone is entitled to their opinion and this is just mine. I have also heard that using solar panels can really help contribute to the running of them. Finally a word of warning on inheriting electric agas, my brother brought a house with an electric aga (not the new AIMS or Dual Control system) He nearly passed out after his first electricity bill - needless to say they haven't switched it on since! He said had he known he would have asked the previous owners to remove it at their expense...

I would paint the ugly red wood an antique white and the bricks a lovely soft grey, then get some cheap small black tiles in a sale and tile over the red hearth tiles or maybe leave them, see how they look. Rustoleum chalk paint is just fantastic, just straight over the top, no priming, but to save paint I would seal the bricks with diluted PVA painted on and allow this to dryRustoleum chalk paint first so they don't suck the paint up.

Hi Dynamo, I'm responsible for the design in your photo and delighted you like the look of this room. You would only need a few square meters of the split mosaic tiles which are available of sheets, so not expensive for a striking feature. Also, easy to keep free of dust with a quick once over with a dust pan brush, or brush attachment on your vacuum cleaner . WC's are often overlooked but when you consider its a room you use every day and your guests use too, why not make it an enjoyable experience! An alternative and very inexpensive idea for your walls and my signature in practically every home I renovate, is installing 6mm MDF panelling with a 10mm shadow gap in between each panel, apply with Pink Gripfil adhesive. 600mm x 600mm square or horizontal panels of any height add a sense of depth and soul to boring flat, painted walls. A sheet of MDF is cheap as chips, just make sure you prime and undercoat thoroughly with a mini roller before applying eggshell finish or acrylic paint. It's not a main bathroom so not susceptible to humidity, therefore emulsion paint in a contrast shade will work well too. To see an example of panelling on a larger scale (Wenge stained Oak veneered MDF), take a look at the sitting room wall in the Chelsea Harbour apartment featured on my profile page.