Well, I’m so glad you asked!

You know how you have to break some eggs to make an omelette?  Well, if you want to make beer, you gotta dry some hops.

And where do you dry hops?

Why, in an oast house, of course!

An oasthouse looks something like this one in Kent, England.

Kent is here:

 

If you know what I’ve been up to lately, you’ll know that the reason I am writing about oasthouses is that some of them have become residences for Brits…

and as we all know, residences must be decorated, and…

well…you know the rest.

When, oh when will my current obsession end?  Only with the end of the BBC Two series, The Great Interior Design Challenge, comes to an end I fear!  Yes, it is true I love interior design and up cycling old treasures, but what really floats my boat is the tour of fascinating English homes, high and low alike, and the history lessons of British social life and domestic architecture.  I mean, what’s not to love?

 

But, I do have a couple of dilemmas.

Here’s one: whereas Google images usually has a great selection of images for most things a blogger wants to illustrate, whether it is fabrics by Fortuny or drawings of carnations, for some reason there are very few images online anywhere I can find of the various projects used in The Great Interior Design Challenge series on BBC Two.  And the ones I can find won’t copy, as the folks at BBC Two obviously know how to restrict access to their intellectual property.  I respect that.

So, I am unable to show you any images from the show of the oast houses featured on the series, exteriors or interiors.  None of the images in this post are related to the show. But that’s okay!

 

Okay, now that I have that info out of the way,  let’s look at some of these crazy oasthouses!

Here’s how they were originally used.

And here are some examples of how these great old structures have been converted for modern life.

 

And, for a quick primer of the variations in structural matters:

 

Here are some useful links for more info on British oast houses:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/property/9612529/How-about-an-oast-house.html

http://looking-at-london.com/2015/09/11/london-workers-22/