Cathy Reynolds runs her own PR firm from a sparely decorated home office halfway up the stairs in the home she bought six months ago, she tells Robert O'Byrne
ALTHOUGH early morning commuter traffic would indicate otherwise, more and more of us today are self-employed and therefore not necessarily driving to a job every weekday morning. According to information released last winter by the EU's Eurostat service, 15.6 per cent of all Irish workers are classified as working for themselves and, while that figure is just less than half what's found in, for example, Greece, it's still pretty high.
It also suggests quite a lot of us work from home where more often than not our "office" is a corner of the kitchen table or a filing cabinet shoved in a corner of the spare bedroom.
Cathy Reynolds, on the other hand, has taken altogether a more professional approach to self-employment and installed a proper office in the home she shares with husband Niall. The couple live in a redbrick terraced house typical of the kind built in the late 19th century in what were then the outer fringes of south Dublin but are now deemed a wonderfully convenient location.
Having sold her old car and yet to buy a replacement, Cathy can still walk to a city centre meeting in 20 minutes.
She and Niall moved into the property in September 2005 following an 18-month search. "Originally we thought of buying somewhere to renovate," she says. "But after a very long and soul-destroying hunt, we came across this place which had been completely refurbished and was exactly what we wanted. It'd been decorated to our taste, so we went that bit extra at the auction and got it."
The deceptively demure exterior hides a large extension to the rear holding a kitchen/dining area and a snug sittingroom along with two smart reception rooms in the main section of the groundfloor.
Upstairs are three bedrooms, two of them with their own bathrooms, an expansive dressingroom and most important of all from Cathy's perspective, a room on the staircase return that makes a perfect home office.
"I wanted to be more flexible with my work hours, so I was looking for somewhere that had a space where I could do that for myself."
Until last year, she'd worked for a variety of employers, including fashion designer Louise Kennedy, but has now set up her own public relations consultancy, Cathy Reynolds & Associates. Already the new business has an impressive roster of clients such as the forthcoming Ritz Carlton Hotel in Enniskerry, Co Wicklow, the Curragh Budweiser Derby and Goff's Millions in September.
Cathy understood if her venture was to be a success, she would need a designated work area. "I couldn't run a business from the kitchen table or in the livingroom; I tried that in our previous apartment and it didn't work. Having a proper office environment focuses the mind."
The office doesn't have to be especially big or formal. That used by Cathy was probably once the house's bathroom and can best be described as compact. But its proportions are more than ample for her purpose because she recognises the importance of self-discipline among the self-employed.
"You have to structure your day. I always start off the morning by writing myself a 'to do' list and I won't finish until I've dealt with everything on it." The backdrop to her home office is intentionally neutral: walls covered in attractive but not distracting paper; floor with a plain buttermilk carpet; a pretty, though rarely required, chandelier hanging from the ceiling. The key items of furniture are a handsome leather-topped desk and matching chair, both of which look old but were actually bought last year from Global Village in Blackrock, Co Dublin.
The desk is stocked with lots of deep drawers and cupboards for storage of upright box files and other documents, cleared away regularly so a sense of order can be maintained.
On the leather surface stands a lap-top computer light enough to be carried in a handbag to those city centre meetings, along with a printer/fax machine and a telephone. The only other item of note here is an antique brass lamp with green glass shade given to Cathy by her father, former taoiseach Albert Reynolds: "He had it on his own desk throughout his time in Leinster House." There's also that essential feature of any office, whether at home or within a purpose-built block: the board on which messages and other useful bits of information, like telephone numbers, can be pinned.
And that's it, simple, orderly and functional. Cathy is inclined to apologise for the room, as though running an efficient and tidy home office shouldn't be a matter of pride. But she appreciates the advantages of having set aside somewhere specific to act as her workplace.
"It makes all the difference. When I take a break, even if it's just to go downstairs to make a cup of coffee, it feels like I'm leaving the work environment." There's one other feature of her home office worth noting: it has a door that can be firmly closed. As Cathy says: "Psychologically, at the end of the day, it's so important to be able to leave your work behind you."
