My Home Office Update

My home office is ready for its first appearance on the blog! Transforming it took longer than I expected, which I admit was entirely my fault. For one thing, I’m much better at starting a project than finishing one! Also, I really took my time choosing the paint color because I’m planning  to carry the same neutral color throughout most of the house. Here’s what the office looked like before we started painting:

After trying a few neutral colors on the walls, I selected Benjamin Moore’s Gray Owl. I found it to be the perfect warm gray tone, but it was a tiny bit too much color, so I had it mixed to be 25% lighter and I love it! I told my husband that I wanted the walls to be “the color of nothing.” Not white, not gray, just nothing – nothing but a backdrop for the art. (I call myself an aspiring art collector.) When I look at this color on the walls, it almost registers as white, but seeing it against the white trim makes it look slightly gray. I wanted just enough color to provide contrast with the trim, and that’s what I got. I can hardly wait to paint this color all over the house! It will continue through the foyer, family room, kitchen, and master bedroom. It will also go up the stairwell, through the hall on the second floor, and into the playroom/FROG.

Ever since we moved in, I’ve been playing with the bookshelves in here and considering how I would style them. I wanted to fill them with a variety of colorful items that evoke happy memories and fuel my creativity. My inspiration piece is a small suitcase I’ve had since I was a little girl. It has all my favorite colors in its fabric – teal, turquoise, orange, etc. – so I chose it to be the basis of my whole-house color scheme.

I started styling the shelves by gathering items that would fit with my color scheme. In addition to my little suitcase, I included my Uncle Al’s globe, my grandmother’s Chinese checkers, and a small piece of original art by Steve Ward. I decided to remove six shelves so there would be plenty of white space to balance all the bold colors. I also reduced the number of shelves so I could add lamps and hang those two Italian Rooftops prints on the back wall. During the process, a lot of books and family photos found their way in here, so I had to spend some time editing and moving things to other rooms before I was finally finished.

We already owned all of the furniture in here, so updating this room was easy on the family budget. The large desk is from Ikea and the orange desk is from CB2. The white chair and blue side table/garden stool are from West Elm. The chair is being borrowed from our kitchen table while we try to figure out the whole chair situation in this house. Our home is in a perpetual state of flux these days!

Thanks for visiting my new home office! If you’d like to see more of our home, be sure to follow me on Instagram and check out my full house tour here.

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave