Repurposed Telephone Boxes

~ beetleypete

The classic British telephone box is a rare sight outside of London these days. Increased use of mobile phones is making conventional phone boxes a thing of the past. So they are being removed and sold off to become collector’s items. However, many are also being repurposed, to capitalise on their iconic status in the UK.

A home bar and drinks cabinet.

Cut into pieces to make a bedside cabinet or side table.

A lift to access the other floors of a house.

An extra toilet in the garage/workshop.

Painted blue and used as a display cabinet.

A useful bookcase.

A planter.

A ‘Free Library’. Take the books you want to read, leave behind some books you have read.

53 thoughts on “Repurposed Telephone Boxes”

    1. I would like one as an extra shed for storing rakes, brooms, and shovels. 🙂
      Trouble is, it would have to be lifted over the house by crane, as the access is too narrow at the side. That would make it too expensive.
      Best wishes, Pete.

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  6. (1) “E.T., phone home. And while you’re at it, have a drink. It’s on us!”
    (2) That bedside table would be a great place to keep my mobile phone at night! (As long as I don’t answer the table instead of the phone at three in the morning.)
    (3) That’s not an elevator. That’s a teleportation cabin. (“Beam me up, Scotty!”)
    (4) “You’ll have to wait for the bathroom, dear. I’m on the phone.”
    (5) I like the display cabinet. I can show off my collection of communication devices: tens sets of Folgers coffee cans connected by a string.
    (6) A telephone bookcase is great. I can never bring myself to throw away old city phone directories, so that would give me a convenient place to store them!
    (7) I like the idea of a telephone planter. Instead of talking dirty on a phone call, I can use potting soil to grow plants!
    (8) But if the free library ever catches on fire (say, at around Fahrenheit 451), how do I call the fire department?

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  13. Pingback: Repurposed Telephone Boxes | beetleypete | Ned Hamson's Second Line View of the News

  17. Mobiles is one reason. The other they gave over here is pay phones were a gathering point for “undesirables.” Conducting criminal activity in public. So there are few pay phones anywhere. Now the criminals conduct their undesirable activity in private so it’s harder to catch them.

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    1. Lots of phone boxes have been used as free libraries. I have also seen one used an an ‘honesty shop’ for selling eggs. Take some eggs, leave the money in a locked box. (Don’t have a photo of that one though.)
      Best wishes, Pete.

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  23. They are wonderfully iconic and so many memories of standing freezing cold calling home during uni days! I see a distinct lack of privacy with the toilet one. 😀 When BT were selling these off my mother helped some clients in America to buy a few and one was made into a shower!

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