If there is one thing I don’t miss from the past it is using telephone booths. Here in the UK, they were bright red, always cold inside (even in the summer) and constantly vandalised and not working. But what on earth can you do with a large, red, UK phone booth? It seems the answer is rather a lot…

10 – Press “3” for art!

Changing these old phone booths into art is quite a recurring theme and these 2 ideas (one filled with paper origami flowers, the other with real ones) are both great and for a small artist to get the chance to have a public art install it is priceless publicity.

9 – “Hello, you are through to alcoholics anonymous, how can I help.”

When the small village of Shepreth, Cambridgeshire had its local pub closed down they managed to get a licence for a pub to be installed in their local phone box! After several years of campaigning, they did indeed manage to get the pub re-opened.

8 – “Dial 5 for plant food!”

All over London there are several councils that have not got the money to remove these old phone boxes, so many of them have been Turing them into planters! I think they look rather nice like that as well.

7 – In the event of an emergency just Dial 999 or just fix yourself!

The problem with village life is that you are often very far away when it comes to hospitals and more importantly fast medical response. So what some villages have done is to turn their old phone boxes into mini medical centres complete with a defibrillator!

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6 – Why phone when you can write?!?

there is nothing quite like getting a hand written letter from someone, so why not see if the local village near you has done this and turned the telephone box into a postcard shop! You just pick the one you want and leave 20p in the booth. I have to be honest and say I can’t see this catching on anywhere other than the most trustworthy of places.

5 – “Phone Sores?”

Much like me Barry Robinson loves these classic red phone booths and not only decided to save 3 of them, but also made this amazing work of art as well. But sadly it seems the local villagers hate it and want him to take it down. Needless to say, it is still up and can be seen clearly in the village of Hurley in Warwickshire.

4 – Better reading than the phone book!

I have seen this idea myself in a small village, the idea of turning the old phone boxes into village library’s is a great idea, provided no-one vandalises it and spoils it for everyone.

3 – “Informe, informe, they all have it in for me!”

Only someone as political as Banksy could have come up with this amazing street art installation, and sadly he is right, it really is the death of these phone booths.

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2 – Make a call to water

If there is one thing people used these old phone boxes for it was keeping out of the rain. (well I used them for that reason anyway) and so in a weird twist someone decided to make this amazing beach shower out of one! That will keep the sand out of the car.

1 – You might want to sit down, this is going to be a long call.

Described as “This Box Lounger” the idea of using an iconic red telephone box as a couch is not only genius, but it also looks amazing! Those of you with a good memory will remember it from my post “Top 10 Most Unusual Sofas” but this time it makes it number 1 because when it comes to creative uses of these old red phone booths there really is no better, I just wish I could afford to buy one!