After much whining and grumbling, my dear hubby finally caved and gave me my very own office. He moved all his stuff to one of our guest rooms, and told me I now had a blank canvas. I got soooo excited, and then overwhelmed, because I never had to decorate a room in MY very own style before. Finally, after spending some time doing online and magazine research, I found that I am drawn to a combo style I now call Victorian/French. Soo, that's what I did to my office, and seriously, it is now officially my absolute favorite room in the whole house!!! :-)
BEFORE: Khaki brown walls. Oak furniture. Cluttered desk. THREE MONITORS??? What the heck! Black chair I got for $5 at a garage sale. Blech.
BEFORE: Oak bookshelf basically falling apart from the weight of the stuff on it. My beautiful artwork is perilously perched on top.
BEFORE: TWO stations, one for me and one for my husband. Very tight quarters and very distracting.
BEFORE: What a messy looking office. How could anyone possibly concentrate on creative work?!?!
AFTER: My newly installed IKEA shelves, complete with interior lights and glass doors. (I know, I haven't completely populated it yet, but you get the point. It took a boatload of screws to install, but I am very pleased with the result.)
AFTER: My new client seating area. When I told people I was finally going to get a girly girl room in my house, they wondered why the heck I chose to paint it blue. This is why. I chose quite a lot of girly girl accents, enough to balance out a pretty nice looking hue of an otherwise masculine color (FYI, the color is called BEHR Arctic Ice, at 50% strength).
I painted some oval frames from Aaron Brothers (buy one get one for a penny!) red and tied black ribbon on them for my boys' silhouettes. Very Victorian.
Not quite fully furnished bookshelves, but you see the tap-on, battery-operated LED lights I installed (from Home Depot).
My new desk!!! It's white!!! And remember that horrendous looking black desk chair that I got at a garage sale for $5? I've reupholstered it velvety red! Now it's all girly! Black ball curtain rods from Lowe's, with 20% off coupon, and white curtains with metal clips, 90% off (yep, 90!) from JCPenney home store.
Hydrangea flower arrangement: A $4.99 thrift-store find. My middle name comes from the Spanish word for hydrangea. :-)
Soon-to-be home of some of my photos, which haven't been printed yet. (They are metal wire curtain rods with clips, from IKEA.)
The desk was inspired by Pottery Barn's Bedford collection, which was too expensive for my budget, so I found a very similar looking one from JCPenney.com for a fraction of the price).
A $10 eBay find: vintage Kodak folding camera.
Another thrift-store find: $2.99 for all four!!! I love my friend, Will's comment on our egg coloring project last Easter about the colors being CMYK (ok, technically, the K is for black, but green is definitely more colorful), so I put water and the same food colors in them for display. The light over them illuminates the colors beautifully, too!
Girly-girl decor from Pier One. 50% off! It's not entirely useless, either! (It gets to hold my homemade lens bag, and maybe a purse and a coat.)
Thrift store find: $5 bird cage photo holder. Reminds me of that episode of FRIENDS where Rachel and Ross shared their love of Pottery Barn, and Ross knew the exact catalog page number of the "ornamental bird cage, large."
The chairs were 50% off, and I had a coupon code for an extra 10% off plus free shipping! And the felt roses pillows were from Pier One, with a $20 coupon! (Never buy anything full price.)
While moving this little table, I accidentally dented it with a sharp object, and it was so annoying, I had to cover it up. Found these wooden flourishes from Michael's, and they did the trick. (They also match my chair design!)
Added wooden accents to my desk as well, because I accidentally dented it too! Sheez luiz, the clumsiness!
Future home of silhouettes of my four boys, who are at Grandma's house on vacation right now, so I have to wait until they get back, unless Grandma does them for me... ;-)
Super cute black and white ribbon, 50% off from Michael's!
Beautifully displayed art. White accent table ($49) from Marshall's, and pretty easel ($20) from Ross. I LOVE LOVE LOVE my gorgeous new office!!!
