Tuesday, June 19, 2012

My New Office!

If you follow me on Facebook you would have noticed that I made a spur of the moment decision on Friday to paint my office :) The BF is home on Fridays and the big girl was at Vacation Bible School still so I figured it would be a perfect time for a little project!

Remember this space: 

Office Before
My "Momma's Always Last" hodge podge of an office?

Well Now it looks like this:
My new office!

Swoon. Gasp. Flutter. Love. 

Ugh. Seriously I'm in big time love with it. This is the one space in the whole house that gets to be M.I.N.E. Nobody else has a say on how it looks or the way its laid out. its all mine and I'm simply in awe of it. Now granted, we are only about 75% done...there are a few finishing touches to be done such as:

- Window Treatments
- New Lighting
- Cord coverage for the front of the desk (see those little white squares? I used to have a piece of material velcroed to the edge of the desk as a sort of "skirt" to keep from seeing the cord cluster...I'm sure I will do something similar to that again.)
-Get my Scrapbooking stuff organized (its all crammed in to that lime green rolling tote shoved under my craft desk right now)
-Make some kind of inspirational quote or wording for the wall above my desk

But for now...its very much so workable :) Wanna see how we did it? 
Valspar Urban Sunrise, Valspar Vintage Grey, Valspar Woodsmoke
**** TIPS FOR PAINTING GREYS****

After taping off the room and putting some tarps down, I painted some swatches on the wall to figure out exactly which shade of grey was going to work in this room. Now here are some words of wisdom: Grey is the new "in" color...and I have painted many a room many a shades of grey and my biggest piece of advice is to ALWAYS paint a test swatch in your room to see what the color is going to look like on your wall. I don't care if it looks like perfect silver grey in the store...you might get home and see a lavender-y/smoke color...I don't care if your neighbor just painted her walls the perfect slate color, it might turn in to cinder block grey for you. TEST. TEST. TEST. and save yourself the trouble of having to repaint. Grey shades have a lot of different undertones, most of which are blue, green or purple...but some can come out with a brown undertone as well. Don't trust your swatch, trust your eye, in your home with the swatch on the wall at the time of day that the room will be utilized the most.


Next I employed The Green Lantern  my extremely cute nerdy bf to remove that hideous chandelier that I have hit my head on no fewer than 20 times. We temporarily replaced this with a small, builder grade light that we had on hand from switching out some of the hallway fixtures...once I find the perfect light piece i'll let you know :) 


Then I put on my grungy clothes and got to painting! While I was working on rolling the walls, the bf was on my tail doing the edging and trim work (he has a much steadier hand than me) 



Then he pulled down those TERRIBLE motel style hanging blinds. and patched the big holes.

And we were all done! we spent the rest of the weekend moving the furniture back in and sorting out all the junk that was inhabiting the space and giving new homes to all my crafty things.

My Desk (its from IKEA) 

This desk packs a big time storage punch. with 8 large cubbies (4 of which are under the desk) even "hopelessly disorganized" people can follow the rule of putting similar items in to the same cubby!

My craft dresser

Directly behind my desk is a dresser that I stole from my older daughters room after the move...it now houses my craft and sewing supplies. I'll take you on a tour of the drawers later this week! On top of the dresser is my mini dresser that holds scrapbooking stickers, a magazine file folder that has all of my blank label pages and my paper cutter and 2 hole punch. These are on here because that height is perfect for me to slice and punch things without having to bend or stoop. above the dresser is my supply grid that has some scrapbooking tools and my cricut mats and then my big rod & bucket system that is full of my pens....I have a strange love for pens :)

My Sewing table

This table and chair are OLD. As in...from my parents house when I was a kid old....they have been through all 9 of my moves, painted about 5 times and just generally beaten and loved. This is my surface that I don't mind when it gets paint stains or sticky spots from glue. Its a crafting table and is meant to be  used as such.
My New Command Center

 
Ok I'm not going to go in to too much detail about this because I have a bunch of big huge posts coming up about it later this week. But OMG. if I could have only had one tiny space in my hole house, and it was this. I would have been satisfied. This is like 6 sq feet of heaven for me. its still a work in progress and I can't wait to show you the afters. :)




Momma might always come last, but sometimes you have to save the best for last :) 












11 comments:

  1. Now THAT is a gorgeous before and after! I think it's adorable and versatile and wow!

    Well done, Shelly! I can't wait to see how you organised all the stuff into that little space!

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  2. How beautiful! You and your bf work well together! I love the lamp shade on your desk...and I too am obsessed with pens...my husband thinks I'm crazy (maybe one day you can show us all your pens...I just LOVE your printing too). Janel in NJ

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  3. Amazing transformation Shelly! I love it! We are getting ready to do some blue/grays in our home. I'm in love with the color! Love the way that shade looks in your room, and the black furniture and accents are right on! You've been busy, girl!

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  4. Great job! I am SO having some office/craft area envy!

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  5. Oh how I would love to have a space like that! I have been scared of the grey craze because of the purple undertones some give off, I don't want a purple wall!

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  6. Your office turned out beautiful. You're so right about grays. I've painted 3 rooms in different grays and love all of them but I did a lot of testing in the space. Thanks for linking to the Home Decor and Organizing Link Party. This is one of my features today.

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  7. Great job, Shelly! I LOVE the decor. I just wanted to let you know that I featured you on Simply Sensational Tuesday this week and also on my Facebook page. Feel free to grab a "featured" button in the footer of my blog. http://www.organizinghomelife.com/archives/3476. Thanks for linking up your makeover! Have a great week. :D

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  8. LOVE your office!! Its perfect! I love how it's not overly-decorated as well... Some of the offices I see on Pinterest are just over the top lol I mean, come on, how long are they REALLY going to stay that way?! Not MY office! HAHA! Also, I adore the buckets for your pens! I have a love for pens as well and have been looking for a cute way to store them, rather than tucked away in a drawer. Would you mind sharing where you got them?

    Again, great job!! Definitely pinning this REAL office (;

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  9. Cha-ching! :O Your office had a magical transformation, Shelly. It wasn't just magically transformed, the outcome is also majestic! I agree with Janel, your lampshade sure is lovely. It has a gothic aesthetic, but the piggy bank tops it all off. LOL. I'm awestruck by its color. It's rare to find a black pig. It looks classy, though. From the craft dresser to the new command center, everything is just better.

    Blake Mitchell

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  10. Whoa, that is a major transformation! You’re right – gray IS the new color trend! And it’s easy to see why. Look at how calming and yet, professional the office looks with that new gray wall color. The carpet goes really well with the new gray as well; I think that’s one of the best changes to the room. Going stark black on the desk and cubbies is a great way to put a major focus point in the room. Great job on the office make-over! I’m super impressed!

    Clayton Steadham

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