My Office Makeover – Where the Magic Happens!

I mentioned a while back that I was painting my office/junk room/extra bedroom. The room was a big jumble of mismatched furniture that I never really used because I just hated how it looked. After I finally got motivated to re-paint it, I started redecorating a little (mostly with stuff we already had) and now the room is finally finished! I love it so much that I thought I’d share it with all of you. It’s officially my office now, I love spending time in here, and I feel like I am so much more productive now that I have a set workspace.

Before I finished this room, my “office” was the kitchen counter and I always got so distracted there that if I wanted to actually buckle down and get things done, I needed to leave the house and work at Panera or Starbucks. No more! I’ve been doing all my work at home since I finished the office and I love it. The other benefit is that my kitchen counter is no longer cluttered with my laptop, notebooks, cords, bills and unopened mail. Extra counter space is a win in my book.

So, the room started out with drab beige walls and ceiling, totally mismatched furniture including an espresso finish bookshelf, a corner desk that was small and kind of unusable, a futon, a side table, and our old small kitchen table that I occasionally used for photographing some of my food. That’s a lot of junk for one small room. I had everything up against walls, and no matter how I rearranged things it never looked right.

Aside from decluttering the room, I really wanted to brighten it up. Our whole house is a little bit dark, one because it’s 120 degrees here in the summer so houses here are built with minimal windows to reduce the sunlight heating up the house, and two because I’ve always liked dark furniture (because I’ve always lived in bright houses). But this space needed to be a happy place, and bright = happy.

So I painted the ceiling white and the walls a mint green. That brightened it up exponentially! It really is the brightest room in the house now, which is great.

Next, I painted the bookshelf. It was a really dark espresso color. I’m not usually into white furniture, but like I said I just wanted this room bright and happy. I’m not all that great at DIY-ing things, but it’s a cheap old bookshelf and it wouldn’t have been the end of the world if I messed it up. So I painted it white. I just used some old all-in-one paint + primer that I found in our garage. It took 4 coats, but it worked! It’s by no means perfect, but with the books and everything on it you’d never even notice.

I hot-glued some burlap to the back of the bookshelf for a little texture. Again, not perfect, but from a distance it looks fine.

I had trouble finding a curtain for out 56-inch window, but finally found a burlap one on Etsy to match the bookshelf. I ditched the corner desk and end table, and decided to use our old kitchen table as a desk. It’s more comfortable than the desk and has a lot more surface area to spread things out. Placing it in the middle of the room rather than against the wall really just made the room look right. I also bought a little white filing cabinet to help me get organized and store some of the clutter.

I kept the futon in the room, which Nick now calls his “desk” because when I’m working at night he’ll come in and “do some work” there… AKA hang out with me while watching YouTube videos. Though we have a separate guest room, we bought the futon for times that we have more than one guest at the same time. We’ve gotten a lot of use out of it, so it was definitely a great investment.

Once I was done with painting and arranging furniture, it was time to decorate the walls. Before redoing the room, the artwork on the walls was just like the furniture– the mismatched leftovers that didn’t fit anywhere else. I got rid of everything that was in the room except for a painting of Paris that my friend did for me years ago. It was green and matched the color scheme so it got to stay! I also added a Cape Cod painting that I got as a gift last fall that hadn’t found a home yet. It was pretty much made for this room. I love seeing both these paintings every day because they are both places that are really special to me.

I had one more wall that needed something. I’m super anal about things being matchy-matchy so I kind of hate redecorating rooms because I’m always looking for the perfect piece of art, even if that means going to 15 different stores and searching for countless hours online. Luckily I found an amazing solution to my problem! At the blog conference I attended in February, I met one of the masterminds behind Modify Ink, a website where you can customize art prints to get the exact color schemes you’re looking for. They offered to let me try out their service, and it was exactly what I needed.

On their website, Modify Ink has 516 pieces of artwork you can choose from to customize, so there is definitely something for everyone.

I’m not sure why, but I totally fell in love with this little cityscape. I guess with Paris and Cape Cod already being represented in my office, this one reminded me a little of my city girl days living in Boston. Once you choose your print, the site loads up an editing page and you can customize your print. Of course, I went with greens and blues to match my room.

There are a zillion different combinations you can create, with different colors, textures and patterns.

My print was shipped out to me really quickly. It arrived wrapped up all cute just a few days after I ordered it!

And here’s the finished product, all happy on the wall opposite my desk. I get to stare at the cute little buildings all day long.

I’m so excited about this service and think it’s such a fun, creative idea. Since we move a lot and seem to be redecorating fairly frequently, I’m sure I’ll be using it again. No more searching hundreds of websites for the perfect piece of art.

If you want try out Modify Ink, you can get 30% off your purchase through 4/12 using this link. Go ahead and get decorating! 🙂

Disclosure: Modify Ink let me try out their service for free. I was not monetarily compensated for this post. All opinions are my own.