Designing a home office built for me, a creative, wasn’t a quick easy process and took a couple twists and turns along the way. The before of this office was pretty bleak, you can see more pictures and my initial thoughts on the space in this post here. It’s a small room that was originally attic space that the previous owners built out. At 8’x12′ and only a skylight to bring in natural light, this space didn’t have a great purpose and we didn’t really know what to do with it.
There is a bank of cabinets at one end which is nice for storage but drab and lifeless in person, attic access on one wall (that big box in the wall, a weird ledge, and a block wall “window” overlooking the stairwell on the other end. Trying to figure out how to make this work for our family was under much debate. We have 4 kids, with 3 of them being boys so we initially thought that maybe one of them should have this room. But with no way to escape in case of emergency it just didn’t feel right.
When we first moved to this house, Sean worked at home full-time so he needed the office space, so this worked out great for him but stayed pretty utilitarian. In May, when I left my job to venture out on my own (read about that here) I needed office space too. As soon as I started working up here, I knew it couldn’t’ stay this way.
The office design was severely lacking and I know that I can’t function in a place that doesn’t look, feel and function great. First of all, we needed 2 desks, secondly, I couldn’t deal with the bland space. I NEED visual stimulation during the day. Just looking at visually interesting images keeps my mind going and creativity moving. SO, I knew this place had to get a makeover.
Which leads us to the after of this project. And boy, do I love this office design! This blue couch is a pullout futon, perfect for when we have guests. The weird ledge has now become an art ledge, and I love being able to add art to it when I find it. We had to keep the attic access, but leaning a large image in front of it hides it, but keeps it accessible.
My favorite part of the room has got to be the art. Most of those posters I gathered at design conferences like Adobe Max, and HOW and I’ve just had them rolled up and collecting dust. Having them framed and available has been awesome. You can read more about the gallery here.
Because we weren’t sure if we would both be able to handle working in the same space together, we actually didn’t want to invest too much into a desk so we decided to build one. We bought a piece of plywood, had home depot cut it down for us, we stained and finished it and installed it over an IKEA drawer base. The plant hanger on the wall was literally made out of scraps of wood and painted the same color of the wall to blend in.
Making space for the guitars on the wall created a studio space when one of the kids was going through guitar lessons and another kid wants to sneak away to practice. Having them out and ready to go makes it easy to access which is great for kids who don’t necessarily want to spend the time practicing.
Because I knew that I would kill whatever is there I decided to go with faux plants, but that plant on the ledge is real and is my FAVORITE. It could look like it was dying and with a little water it gets revived and I have not killed it after almost 8 months! Amazing!
On the opposite wall sits the amazing blue velvet sofa which is actually a pullout futon. And above, some wood wall hooks where I mostly store my camera bag (& camera). Since the gallery wall and bookshelves are so colorful I wanted to keep this wall clean and art free. That might change over time if I collect more posters but for now my back is to it 90% of the time so I am good with it being empty.
This black pendant light is so reasonably priced I HAD to replace the ugly white one that was here before. As I mentioned before all these posters were from design conferences, but you can order some of them from French Paper to add some color to your walls too.
The bookshelves got a cheap and easy makeover. Actually, it seems easier than it actually was. While I knew I wanted to remove the upper doors and create some open shelving, I also thought I wanted to paint these cabinets black. So, I did. And promptly the paint started peeling off because I had used a latex paint over the existing oil-based paint. (yikes!). So, I had to strip it back as much as possible, prime it and by then I was over the black, so it got painted back to white. Although a white white, not a creamy white which is previously was. I love that it still kept the storage I needed but opened the space up a little bit. The baskets came from a local store, Daiso, have you heard of those? They are a Japanese dollar store which has the cutest pink packaging on everything, but also have some great imported items that are really well priced. These baskets were only $5 ea!
So there you have it. An office design made for a creative with lots of eye candy, hidden storage (to hide those messes!), comfy furniture, and colorful art!