To be feeling like the whole house is an office because of endless meetings?

[Shatteredglasses]

I am slowly but surely losing my mind with never having the house to myself, honestly. DH started working from home permanently last year. It was presented to me as a good thing (I’ll be done with work much earlier, be able to help more with the kids) but it’s just turned the house into an office. Half term is coming up and it feels very suffocating. I can’t do basic things like hoover or have music playing or friends over. It’s starting to get me down a bit tbh.

Does he not have a study, shut the door? If not he needs to.

Good grief that’d drive me nuts. Why can’t he go into the office? It sounds like he has no suitable office space at home if you can’t even hoover or have friends over?

My DH works from home 2-3 times a week and I barely see or notice him. Why is it so intrusive for you?

Unless you live in a bedsit I can't understand why you can't do those things.

Doesn’t he have a home office? He can’t just work around the house.

I work from home, usually in the dining room. When I have meetings when other people are at home, I take myself away somewhere else. We have a spare room with a desk set up, and i also have a desk set up in the corner of our bedroom. Basically I can work without inconveniencing anyone at any time of the day or night (my job is 24hrs)

Your husband needs to revisit his working set up.

To agree with the above DH works from home but when he’s in the office with the door closed I just pretend he’s not there and get on with my day. If the door is closed and he’s using a headset for meetings he won’t hear a thing

Hm, my dad did this at our family home when I was 13. In the school holidays I had to be up , dressed , breakfasted, and the house clean and tidy by 9am, then quiet and helpful the rest of the day, making coffee and lunch for him and any visitors, posting letters and parcels, and available to chat to if he wasn't busy.
My mum took the precaution of getting a full time job as soon as he decided to work from home; she knew how it would be. He was used to having admin staff in his previous job, and anyone living on the premises was conscripted.
I'm sure your DH is not that bad (??) but the two of you need to agree some arrahgement where he can work in peace and you can live your life too.

Him working from home shouldn’t stop all of that and if it does he needs to find somewhere else to work in the holidays

I would feel exactly the same! It’s a very normal thing to feel. If he has turned the whole house into an office, where exactly is his office space?

Why can’t you have people over when he’s working? Is he working from the dining table?

Someone working full time from home with lots of meetings needs a dedicated office space where a door can be shut and the rest of the house can carry on as normal. I’m assuming your DH doesn’t have that kind of space at home?

What would your DH say if you asked him to book a co-working space for the half term week?

It’s a problem for @Shatteredglasses because house layouts, lifestyles, working habits and even building standards will differ?

A spouse working quietly on a set of accounts or architectural plans in an upstairs room in a highly insulated house will have a different impact to someone working in an open plan living space on regular meetings and sales calls.

It’s like the MN threads where someone asks if their ten year old can go to the shop by themselves. They get sarcastic responses back from people who say that their kids have been going to the shop independently since age three-and-a-half and is the
OP some kind of ridiculous helicopter parent, only for it to transpire that the person commenting actually lives three doors down from the shop on a pedestrian walkway…

I like my DH working from home a couple of days per week but meetings can be quite audible (even through a closed door) and I do like to have the house to myself too!

Lol not everyone can afford a spare room/home office. Where does he work? Can you fit a desk in one of the bedrooms? (Mine is in my bedroom which isn't ideal but better than a downstairs communal space).

Do you work too? Does he have an office he could go to more when the kids are home, e.g. half terms?

In my experience, even with a dedicated 'office' at home with a door that can close, it does change the atmosphere when someone else is wfh. DH will tell me to do whatever I'd normally do, and we make it work, but the house does feel different when there's someone in the other room. I feel obliged to keep things quieter than usual, even if he'd never complain. There are benefits to those days we both wfh, but there are also compromises that have to be made. It's not 100% positive.

Your husband needs to be open to doing as much as possible to keep your home feeling like home. What exactly that is depends on your home's layout, his attitude toward noise, when and where he works, and other factors.

Husband wfh permanently he is self employed. Has his own office upstairs. I am semi retired but do consultancy occasionally so work from the dining room. It works. Not so much during Covid when I was shouting at people constantly down the desk phone ( It technician so constant problems when they all went remote). I ask if he’s going on a call so don’t hoover and try to keep the dogs quiet

Does he have a separate room to work in? When my DH works from home I keep doing whatever I want and if the noise bothers him he closes the door ( I might refrain from hoovering upstairs if he’s on a meeting).

No one should really be wfh unless they’ve got a dedicated space to work in, where they can shut the door and as pp have said, the rest of the household can function as normal.

Can he at least shut himself in the bedroom? No one should be working in a shared space for confidentiality anyway.

In half term, anyone wfh should expect normal household noise

I grew up with a parent working from home. DH has worked from home for the majority of our marriage and I now work from home, but we all have our own space and doors, and we stay inside the space and close doors if on calls. Otherwise it wouldn’t work. He needs to be able to work in a space you can stay clear of without it being an issue, otherwise he needs to go to an office. It should be a home first.

Can he never go into the office?
DH and I both work from home and some days I barely see him.
Is he working in the living room? That's definitely trickier than in a study/office.

This is it. He’s in a small study area but you can hear him all over the house, not because he’s particularly loud or anything, it’s just the way the house is.

Can you build a small cabin in the garden for use as a home office?

Has his company made him WFH or has he decided he is? If he is in a study space in the house just crack on with your day. Is he saying he can hear you round the house? As its a house issue he can put headphones on when in a call. If not he can put music on quietly whilst he works if you are worried about disturbing him. Don't adjust your behaviour as there are ways to get round it.

Myself and DH are both on WFH contracts so we've had to be very careful with the space we use. DH as the FT person built an office space in the garden. He can be as loud as he wants in his calls and he doesn't disturb anyone. If the kids are playing outside he will shut the windows or put the radio on in the background. Likewise I work from a spare room PT and if I'm working during the holidays and DH isn't I set my stuff up in his office space so nobody has to worry about disturbing me.

House living has to come first, WFH can be done in a shared working space outside of the home if it has to be.

Can you relocate his office space to a carpeted room with a door that closes? If you don’t have carpet then try putting down rugs and adding soft furnishings to deaden the noise a bit, a draft excluder sausage thing behind the closed door will also help, you could even put bookshelves up as the books themselves will help absorb the noise.
A bedroom will be your best bet, these tend to have the most “stuff” in.
Open plan, scandi style minimalist houses often look great but they do allow noise to carry in a way that homes with carpets, heavy curtains and more visible stuff (like books on open shelves) don’t

Did your DH consider any of this before deciding to WFH full time?

We were forced into it initially by lockdown, my DP has returned to the office for 2 or 3 days a week but we spent a long time both WFH at the same time. In the half term holidays I would expect childcare to be split between us, or use holiday clubs if possible. Or, if holidays/clubs didn't allow the time to be split and I was at home with the kids and not working, we would use the house as normal because DP is in the office with the door shut.

It is unreasonable to expect the whole house to be a workspace. If your DH has a problem with the usual noise and activity then he needs to sort out a solution that works for him.