durham inc.
3 KILLER HOME OFFICES ... PLUS A STUDY THAT INSPIRES RECURRING HAPPY HOURS BY HANNAH LEE | PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOHN MICHAEL SIMPSON
ompanies of all sizes scrambled to get their employees adjusted to working from home when the pandemic caused shutdowns last March. The kitchen table became a permanent desk. The bed, once coveted for naps, now covered in paperwork. More than a year later, some employees are encouraged to return to the office, though many have no desire to go back. One in four Americans said they’re working remotely in 2021, according to Upwork’s “Future of Workforce Pulse Report” released in December 2020. That same report estimated that 36.2 million Americans will continue to work remotely by 2025, an 86.5% increase from prepandemic stats. We asked four Durhamites to show us their work-from-home setup and how they’ve adjusted to the lifestyle.
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durhammag.com
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april 2021
‘LITTLE MUSEUM’
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achel Rivers has mastered the art of prop amalgamation. Home goods accumulated over her years as an interior/prop stylist line every inch of available wall space in a narrow storage room that’s been converted into an office. When her petite 5-foot2-inch frame needs to grab a prop off the shelf for a photo shoot, she easily climbs onto her repurposed 60-inch school desk she found on Facebook Marketplace and reimagines the space in a matter of minutes. What’s truly masterful about the makeshift office is the way she maximizes the space in the 60-square-foot room (if you can even call it a room). Rivers and her husband, Charles Rivers, moved into the Craftsmanstyle house downtown a year and a half ago; the home’s previous owners used the room for overflow, and the walls were painted a neon green. “It was awful,” Rivers said. “I immediately painted it white.” She followed that by adding a $60 antique secretary desk from a local thrift store, but that wasn’t enough to hold all her rattan baskets, paintings, books, pottery and trinkets. When the pandemic hit, Rivers invested more time into making the semi-storage/“sort of” office more practical for stay-at-home work. The addition of a few IKEA shelves did the trick. “My husband calls it an orderly hoarder’s paradise,” Rivers said of her “little museum.” “I don’t even know how to describe my style because my work and Instagram are full of bright colors, but my home has a lot of neutrals. I try to stay curious and notice whatever catches my eye.”