I’ve struggled for over five years to create an inviting area to great guests when they enter our home. We’ve battled the nasty carpet (I single-handedly ripped it all out one day when Payton was doing yard work – you should have seen the look on his face when I dragged it out the front door – he had no idea we were in the market for new floors), installed new floors, fought the dogs over their “space”, stuck a desk in it and called it an “office”, and most recently I’ve used this space to store inventory for a side business.
When you’re out-growing your house but not in the market to move, you do your best to make things work. I was just about ready to throw in the towel when it all started to come together.
Here’s what was required: a home office where my husband and I could work together (that didn’t scream “HOME OFFICE”), an area we could use socially, and a spot for the dogs. And the fact that it all needed to be appealing should be implied, right?
You’ve seen the before pictures, now for the after.
Chairs | Rug | Curtains (with about a foot of clearance fabric added to bottom) | Paint
I am so in love with these chairs. They were exactly what I wanted, and a great deal (both of them delivered for under $500). Pillows here.
Remember the orb DIY? This is the final result. I’m still looking for a place for the larger one.
And the other details that you can’t find online: Chandelier and fan (Round Top Antique Fair)
Vintage maps (my husband actually recreated and framed these)
Chest: something that my husband had when we got married.
So I know a few of you are thinking “Cream, really, with a kid?” Nothing a little ScotchGuard can’t handle, I swear by it. But funny story here. I grabbed a spray can out of the cabinet that said “Scotch” (and was actually impressed that what I was looking for was that easily accessible). I was a second away from spraying my chairs, had already shaken the can for at least a minute, and just happened to glance at the instructions that read “Make bond while adhesive is aggressively tacky“. I had accidentally picked up the Scotch multi-purpose adhesive that my husband uses for spray-mounting client samples. THAT would have been a disaster!
And now for the office space.
Please ignore the empty curtain rod to the top left. If you didn’t notice it, ignore this sentence.
We have the “battleship” desk going on. It’s great, we keep each other motivated and equally annoy each other with our work “ticks”.
I swear bookcase-arranging is an art form, that we haven’t mastered. Right now, it’s all about function.
And it’s nice to have this pretty chalkboard to disguise some of the not-so-pretty stuff.
Bookcases are from Ikea.
Chalkboard and farm table: from my mother-in-law. She has some great goodies that she’s passed along to us.
I saw this idea for storing twine in MS Living. Clever lady she is!
Antler bowl (holding oranges) here.
Biggest accomplishment: we now have a shared work space which makes working more entertaining, all of the furniture that was blocking the big windows has been moved and the room feels so much bigger and brighter, I have a “grown up” space where I can sit with a glass of wine and relax. I’m so proud of this space. And the fact that our office is still totally functional and beautiful (we have a full size printer in the bookcase under the desk) is the most surprising thing to me. WE DID IT!
And not to be forgotten, the puppies have their own little spot in front of the window.
Oh, and if you’re wondering where the train table went, it’s finally in Eli’s room. And that nasty couch, we put it on the curb in front of our house and it was gone in less than an hour.
Looks great. Now I know what you were gluing in the garage.
Lurveloaveluff!