Overall, my office project exploded to be bigger than I originally expected. It all turned out great in the end, but there was more work, research, and painting than I anticipated.
Originally, I was going to paint the current desk with chalk paint, but Tony had the idea to put it on Cragislist to see if we could get anything for it. We ended up selling it in three days; easy, peasy, lemon squeezy. $350 is a great starting fund for redecorating!
I made a to-do list, (of course), of what I wanted to get accomplished in the office:
1. Paint. The room needed paint before I did ANYTHING.
2. Furniture purchases – a desk & storage (bookshelves, places to hid all the bill clutter, etc…)
3. Decor with an accent color – fun colored chair, lamp, art, etc….
Paint:
I had already purchased a gallon of the paint color I wanted, hoping one Saturday I could talk really nice to Tony, (and a helper), and the desk could have been moved to paint the walls behind it. So Friday night came, (Aug. 29), and I knew I wanted to get a jump start on this project. I convinced Tony that painting a room would be a great way to spend a rainy Friday evening; ‘Tony, we’ll crank music, you can drink beer, and we’ll get a project done together for the first time!’
And I kid you not, he agreed!
We listened to slightly stoopid pandora, probably a little too loud, with our windows open, watched Ace like a hawk – the guy seemed all too curious as to what the paint was all about – and enjoyed a nice night in painting.
The color turned out great! It is Valspar paint, Owlet. It has a calming blue hue, but has undertones of green, (the color scheme of the thinking room’s color). I wanted the room’s atmosphere to light, inviting, calming, especially because that is where I want most of my writing to take place.
My mom is going to touch up the ceiling trim for me – let’s be honest, I DO NOT have a steady hand – and the paint will be done by Labor Day!
1. Paint. The room needed paint before I did ANYTHING.
Furniture:
Since the painting was wrapped up Friday evening, I went on the hunt for furniture on Saturday. My best friend, Katie and I hit every furniture store imaginable. She was looking for a bedroom set, I was looking for a desk.
She found a bedroom set she loved. I did not find a desk. I had high hopes for one I found online at Pier One, but it was smaller than I preferred. It’s hard for me to visualize such a small desk in that space after having such a LARGE piece of furniture previously.
I came home yesterday empty-handed and frustrated. I had no idea it was going to be this difficult to find what I was looking for. I was looking for a white desk, with no drawers, fancy compartments, and something that didn’t look cheap.
This picture was my inspiration for the office furniture:
I like the simplicity of the desk and I want a piece of furniture, like the one in this picture, for the wall behind the desk. I obviously love the decor, but I REALLY love how clean the furniture looks. I want a piece with doors and drawers to store the clutter of bills and any other paperwork that I would jam into desk drawers in our old desk.
I found a lovely desk on overstock.com. It’s actually a Pottery Barn desk, that’s originally priced at $500! I found it for $200! I knew this would take up a good portion of my budget, but I’m totally okay with it. I would rather find something that will last. ANNND $200 for a desk? Not bad!
The desk was delivered and put together by the following week! It was a bit difficult to put together, but once we nailed down the numbers/names for all the pieces, it seemed to go quick. My mom has such a good eye for that kind of stuff. I’m lucky I have her to help!
The desk is beautiful. It is exactly what I want for the ‘look’ in the office. My mom helped me put it together – we had fun 🙂
Next on my list of must have furniture, was a patterned chair!
I definitely had some trial and error in this department. I wanted to keep the room as neutral as possible; not necessarily bring in a specific color or style. However, the plain chairs just didn’t do much. The room looked boring.
I decided on this chair from Pier One:
I tried to stay away from floral, but it was just too perfect of a color and style. This chair definitely ate up the rest of the $350 I originally started with, but in my opinion, it’s totally worth it! (Don’t tell Tony).
Next, was the piece of furniture for behind the desk – I wanted to have a place for our printer, bills, books, etc.. Anything else that may need filing.
My mom and I tried one of the dresser from the guest bedroom, with bookshelves that are from the same bedroom: 
I thought we had a solution. I liked that it had many drawers for stuffing and hiding receipts, however, I hated the style of the handles.
My next plan was going to be painting the handles and getting whitewashed baskets for the bookshelves.
I landed on this as a result:
Not quite the look I was going for, but looked ‘okay’ for the time being.
Enter old entertainment unit.
I’m kicking myself, because I didn’t take a picture of what this looked like originally, but just imagine an old oak, (fake oak), entertainment console with two drawers. My friend, Tommy, had this in his basement and wanted to get rid of it – for freeeeee. Thank you, Tommy.
I wanted to paint it white – to match with the other furniture in the office. My goal was to keep all other furniture white, and then accent with colors, textures, etc…
You can find my experience with chalk paint and redoing this piece here.
So, overall, another number crossed off my to-do list!
2. Furniture purchases – a desk & storage (bookshelves, places to hid all the bill clutter, etc…)
After about a week of painting, painting, and more painting, I finally finished this project; thus finishing up the office make over.
I’m pretty happy with what I have so far – I’m still waiting on the delivery of a bookshelf – but I love the decor I found to go with the look I wanted!
Here are some of the other little pieces I added, up close and personal –
So, for now, my work here is done. I’m sure there will be another update with the bookshelf and wall detail, but I can go to sleep tonight knowing this project is wrapped up!
xo