Corner Office

Design: Studio Kahaani

I love that the coldest days in Ottawa are often the sunniest, and my south-facing office becomes a year-round sunroom no matter the season. It’s also the perfect vantage point for me to watch all the comings and goings of our street, and is actually same view I had from my south-facing childhood bedroom next door at my parent’s house. Back then I called it spying, but now I’m simply a civic-minded neighbour…right?

This is the area outside my home office, and I always like using these types of forgotten corners as opportunities for intentional design. If you look out of the window to the left, you’ll see the steeple of the church that is down the block. I thought it would be apropos of our multicultural lives to set up a little altar of deities in the shadow of the Anglican grand dame that has presided over this street since 1898. Where my sister and I used to play, or pause to watch weddings and funerals and join Christmas Carol services - and where my kids and I now do the same. It’s a wonderful and rather surreal feeling to be able surrounded by your childhood memories as you and your children make new ones in the very same place.