My Plans For A Home Office Mini Makeover

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Two years ago I did a ‘before and after’ blog post on creating a home office that both my husband and myself were going to share. As a musician, he was often away travelling and I had only just started this blog, so just blogged as and when for fun. Fast forward two years, he is working from home most of the year and I am running a design consultation business alongside this blog. The shared space was just not working for us anymore. He filled the room with musical paraphernalia and it became a shotgun game to who got to use the desk. I started to think we might be outgrowing the house, when it occurred to me that we had the space, we just were not using it efficiently. Downstairs next to the kitchen was our ‘guest room’ that really had become our dumping ground. We had filled up all the designated storage space we had in the house, so this room suffered the overflow. Even though I loved the room with its Style Library wallpaper and burnt orange chesterfield sofa-bed, there was a lot of junk in it. In the corner was an old wooden drawer unit that I got off freecycle to store files. The grey colour didn’t match the room and really it needed to be full height to make the most of the space. I also had attempted to build a DIY wardrobe and that had half fallen to pieces with the door hanging off!

It was so obvious that the room would be perfect for my own office, I don’t know why I didn’t have the idea to utilize the space earlier. We started the mass clear out which meant that the new office could soon be a reality, managing to give-away or recycle half of the items in the loft which freed up storage space elsewhere. I love the room decorated as it is, so I just need to add in the right furniture!

The perfect space for the desk is where the wardrobe used to be, although it is a narrow 110cm gap due to the radiator. I found the perfect piece with this Audrey mini-desk by West Elm. It’s a svelte 91cm in length, while the colourway matches the Style Library wallpaper a treat! West Elm have been incredibly kind enough to gift me this desk for the makeover and also throw in a chair, so I’ve gone for this gorgeous blush pink number below:

This Jane Dining Chair in pink velvet adds a new colour into the decor scheme, but as pink complements most other colours I know it will work a treat with the orange sofa.

I gave away the small wooden drawers and instead have replaced it with this IKEA VITTSJO metal unit as the dimensions were perfect for the space. As well as give me double the height to store files than the wooden drawers did, It is an absolute bargain at £45. As the black is not really a colour that works with everything else, I’m going to spray paint it once the desk and chair are in and I have a better vision of what colour might work. Perhaps a terracotta pink?

With the old wardrobe gone and the layout changing, the small beni rug in the room needs to come out and something larger put in its place. I also wanted to add something much more glamorous as it is going to be a space I will be spending a lot of time in, so I chose this gorgeous ‘Mad Men’ rug by Louis de Poortere from Modern Rugs. The rug has little flecks of gold in it which will compliment the wallpaper and the desk legs. The Mad Men collection is a real favourite of mine as you can’t beat the price point for such a modern design. For clarity, Modern Rugs are very kindly gifting me this rug for my home office project.

What is really exciting is that this room has a en-suite. As part of another project going on at the same time, this very boring white bathroom that we inherited from the previous owners is going to be transformed into a pink dream!

I’m working with a company called Showerwall UK who create bespoke acrylic panels. I’ll be revealing a lot more about this project soon, but along with Showerwall I have created my own pink-scalloped design which you can see in my mood board below:

The whole space will be covered in these pink panels and I just cannot wait to see the result. It will be the perfect accompaniment bathroom to the home office. I’m hoping everything will be completed by the second week in April, so come back to see all the ‘reveal’ pictures!