One Room Challenge: The Office | Week 6 - The Reveal!

I wish there was a way to express that jumping up and down, happy dance feeling in text, because that's totally where I'm at right now. Well, I'm not actually jumping because I just worked a 12-hour day at my new job, but that's not the point. In my head, I'm happy dancing.

Staying true to the One Room Challenge started by Linda at Calling It Home, I managed to finish revamping my office in six weeks, stay on budget(!!), and document the process along the way. If you want to go back and see all the not-so-pretty moments and rants along the way, click the links below. If you want to hustle up and just see the pictures already, keep scrolling.

Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5

Before I reveal too much more of the finished office, let's reveal the before pictures, shall we? This was a blank, gray room off the dining room.

I think you've heard me (read me?) yap about this room enough, so I'll let the pictures speak mostly for themselves. However, it would be totally unfair of me to post the pictures without thanking my mom, dad, and andy, who all were great builders, craigslist picker uppers, haulers, encouragers, and super patient with me while I worked through this. In the last six weeks I have: interviewed for a job, wrapped up an old job, started a new job, gotten engaged, started planning a wedding, AND redecorated a room. The patience was SO SO necessary.

Overall, I'm so happy to have an energizing, happy, pulled-together space to work and relax in. Here's my office!

I don't feel like I challenged office norms all that much - the basic elements that you would expect were all there. Desk - check. Shelving - check. But I love how cozy and warm the room ended up. At first I was begrudging the lack of overhead lighting, and now with lamps in place I'm loving the softer glow. I'm thrilled to have a room to get some serious and creative work done, and another spot to lounge when Andy is playing Madden in the living room :)

Let me know what you think and if there's anything you would change!

P.S. - the cabinets are getting hardware soon. I'm just scared to drill holes and then realize they're not centered or level. Totally normal fear.

One Room Challenge: The Office | Week 2

[et_pb_section admin_label="section"][et_pb_row admin_label="row"][et_pb_column type="4_4"][et_pb_image admin_label="Image" src="http://www.thecasualcreative.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/guestparticipant.jpg" show_in_lightbox="off" url_new_window="off" use_overlay="off" animation="off" sticky="off" align="left" force_fullwidth="off" always_center_on_mobile="on" use_border_color="off" border_color="#ffffff" border_style="solid"] [/et_pb_image][et_pb_text admin_label="Text" background_layout="light" text_orientation="left" use_border_color="off" border_color="#ffffff" border_style="solid"] Well, this week my One Room Challenge feelings pretty much went back and forth between calm, collected confidence and sheer panic. On the one hand, I think I have a pretty solid design plan and timeline mapped out that I went through in my week one post. On the other hand, regular life is also happening and I have a very real budget (booo.....)

Like I said in my week 1 post, I am by no means a professional, and I do not have a professional (or even semi-professional) budget or resources. I'm stressing this for two main reasons. 1) To lower your expectations to the point that no matter what I pull off wows you 2) To attempt to make the point that you can have an awesome looking room without a whole lot to work with.

In this post I'm going to take you through my budget, and the first few big accomplishments in the space.

THE BUDGET

My parents and Andy will tell you that the most amazing skill I possess (and have possessed since an alarmingly young age) is the ability to instantly fall in love with the most expensive version of anything, before I am even remotely aware of what it costs. ANYTHING. Shopping for an Easter dress for my 4-year-old self? Mom look at how pretty this one (which happens to be imported from Paris and hand-embroidered) is! Looking at a menu when out to a nicer dinner with family friends? Sure my 8-year-old sister is happy with chicken strips, but 10-year-old Carrie is really craving surf and turf. Doesn't matter what it is - food, clothes, home decor, even ridiculous things like plants and pens. The things I love are almost always the ones I can't afford. Having great taste is a curse, I tell you.

But that's not the point... the point is that in an attempt to reign this in, Andy has started saying the dreaded b-word to me. BUDGET. I told him I would do my very best to not spend more than $1500-$2000 on this ENTIRE ROOM. Which is equal parts crazy, challenging, and totally necessary. Anyway - here's the current breakdown of how much I am willing and able to spend on certain aspects of this office redo:

• Paint - $100
• Rug - $300
• Couch - $200
• Desk - $200
• Built-ins - $400
• Curtains - $100
• Stuff - $300 (lamps, shelf styling stuff, office supplies, frames and prints, end tables, pillows, etc.)

Now look, some of you (especially if I'm getting of you real designer types looking at this), are thinking how totally unrealistic those numbers are. I know I was thinking the same thing looking at them. But I, like so many other people, want to be in a beautiful space that still allows me to pay my bills. To accomplish this, I am going to have to go outside the box in some cases, and be happy with big-box in others. Craigslist and garage sales are my friend. Clearance stickers are my friend. I will be using a lot of stuff that I already have, even if it's not the stuff I most want. Mom, I hope you appreciate how hard I am adulting right now.

PAINT

It is such a cliche, but boy is it true. Nothing refreshes a space like a new coat of paint. Because I want to infuse a lot of color in a lot of the other elements of this room, I opted to go white on the walls to serve as a nice bright canvas. None of the other rooms in my house are white, so this is actually kind of a fun change for me. I chose Nano White from the Behr Home Decorators Collection. It's actually only on 3 of the walls in the room, because the 4th wall continues right in to the entry-way, which leads right in to the rest of the house. There just wasn't a good breaking point, and I didn't want to have to paint the entire entryway too, so one light gray-green wall will remain.

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COUCH

When I sat down to do my design plan, I had a very clear idea of the type of couch I wanted in this office space to lounge and read on. Here are some of my favorite couches that I've been eyeing up for a while now:

1. Trevor Leather Sofa | 2. Modern Chesterfield Leather Sofa | 3. Hamilton Leather Sofa | 4. Hancock Tufted Distressed Chesterfield Leather Sofa | 5. Brooklyn Leather Sofa

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Of course, I already told you that my budget for this couch was about $200 dollars, and in many places they would laugh at me for even getting a leather fabric swatch for that much. So I did what I often do and started the craigslist hunt. Well, wouldn't you know it that this (kinda) beauty popped up not too far from my parents house? I especially love it when that happens because I negotiate the price, ask my mom and dad when they are willing to pick it up, and at some point they deliver it to me and it's almost like I ordered it out of a catalog or online like a civilized furniture buyer would do. HA.

I got the couch for $150 and felt AWESOME about it. Is it a pristine rolled-arm chesterfield? Nope. Is it a comfortable leather couch in pretty good shape that fits my basic design aesthetic? Yes. So we're calling it a win. Here's what the couch looks like in my room versus this random person's basement.

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RUG

Confession: I actually bought the rug for this room a few weeks before the One Room Challenge started. whew. I feel so much better now. I had been toying with the idea of getting going on this office for a while, and had been keeping a very close eye on sales going on over at RugsUSA, esalerugs, and wayfair, and was just hoping that some rug would appear that was big enough, beautiful enough, and cheap enough.

Here are some of the rugs that were serious contenders at one point or another:

1. Abstract Waterfall Rug | 2. Keyhole Trellis Rug | 3. Barcelona Area Rug | 4.  Distressed Foggy Medallion Rug | 5. Windsor Printed Overdyed Grove Rug

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One day I announced to Andy that I was having A RUG CRISIS(!!!). He laughed at me and then sternly lectured me on how picking a rug was not deserving of the word CRISIS in all caps, or even in lowercase for that matter. Following that, I decided for the 867,000th time that I needed a new free design assistant. Then I did the sensible thing - I narrowed it down to the final 3 rugs and let Andy make the final decision because he had put up with me through this whole ordeal.

Here's the rug he chose:

It is so much prettier in person than online. It almost looks sort of pixelated, which I think is kind of a funky cool look.

So that's where I'm at after week 2, with 4 weeks and 5 posts to go. Next week I'll cover how I'm getting a custom desk and "built-ins" for way cheap without making my parents go on any sketchy craigslist runs. Hint: It mostly involves my dad being awesomely handy and nice to me. Stay tuned for that, and feel free to leave a comment telling Andy how much you love the rug he chose so that his ego grows to enormous proportions. That's just what I need in my life.

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Office Update: A Peek into My Design Process

When I bought my house, I was thrilled that it had a fairly large "extra" room in the front corner of the house. It has beautiful french doors that open from the dining room, and it's really the only room of my house that gets great natural light for a good portion of the day. So of course, I quickly claimed it as my office/work space/den.

I wanted to share the plans for the office, but I also wanted to share my design process (if I can even call it that) so that others can follow the same formula and love their own spaces!

1. Pull together images that speak to you

When people come over, or I share some of my work, the most common question I get asked is "how do you come up with these ideas?" My answer - and it's a truthful one - is always the same. I steal them.

All designers/stylists/decorators/creatives are constantly immersing themselves in other people's work and being inspired by a variety of sources. I would never look at a feature in House Beautiful and decide to attempt to duplicate a magazine spread in my house. But I would take a bunch of the different elements that leap out at me and put them together in a different way or with a twist.

When I started thinking about redoing my office I scoured pictures of offices, dens, and sitting rooms without searching for anything in particular. Most of the stuff was pretty "meh" to me, but there were definitely images that peaked my interest.

A LOT

Things I like (based on those photos):

1. Bright spaces that make good use of natural light
2. Masculine "den"-type spaces. I think a lot of this has to do with having very fond memories of hanging out in my dad's den with him as he worked, or had patient, in-depth conversations with my 10-year-old self about current events or the mysteries of the world. Or how there were certain classic songs you should always play REALLY loud.
3. Lots of space to display books and other special, inspiring items and collections.
4. A mix of modern and traditional pieces.

That's a lot of info from just looking for patterns among a handful of pictures!

Next step...

2. Decide what elements you can't live without

All of those design ideas are nice.. but how do you start to actually conceptualize the room? For me, I figure out what I can't live without. This is where you switch to thinking about function instead of aesthetics.

Things I need in the space:

1. A large, clean work surface to be able to spread out on
2. A couch to do more passive work, lounging, and reading on.
3. Shelving to store and display books and treasures
4. Plenty of lighting to encourage productivity on short winter days

3. Plan the space

There are lots of great tools available to visualize and plan floor plans. My personal favorite is just good old graph paper and a pencil, but I've also used and appreciated floorplanner.com because it's free, pretty user-friendly, and has standard sized furniture built in so you can just place items and move them around your room. For people that have trouble visualizing flat shapes as three-dimensional spaces, it has a nifty feature that lets you "tour" the room.

Quick tip: Furniture always looks bigger in a 3d space than it does in a floor plan. If your floor plan feels a little sparse, it's probably about right.

If I'm really worried about the scale of furniture or making a lot of pieces fit, I take the time to draw everything to scale. But in this room I knew I had quite a bit of wiggle room, and just did a quick sketch of the layout in powerpoint.

4. Design the "look" of the room - mood board time!

So you know what you like, you know what you need, and you know the big pieces you need in the space and how they'll lay out. The best way to make all of those things start to gel into a "look" is to put a bunch of potential elements together in a mood board and start editing until you're happy with it.

Here's the mood board I created for my office space:

I did this in Photoshop by copying and pasting a bunch of images together after removing their background "stuff". I also use Pinterest and other inspiration board-type websites, but I still find that actually seeing all of the elements together in one space is most helpful.

I knew I wanted a comfortable, leather couch in a warm brown color to bring in some of that masculine-den feel. I won't be able to afford an actual Chesterfield like I have pictured here, but I'm hoping to find something in that vein.

I've decided to use a cowhide rug in the space because a) they're super durable b) to get a rectangular rug large enough for this space would be cost prohibitive (see my previous rant on expensive rugs here) and the irregular shape of the cow hide allows you to cheat the rules a little bit and c) I really need something to break up the expanse of Brazilian hardwood floor that I didn't pick but can never get rid ofbecause it's expensive and looks nice enough I guess. <-- sorry about that long run on sentence, Haley. (she's decided she's my blog editor. I think it's because she likes pointing out my faults. Little sisters, I tell ya.)

I want a large, somewhat rustic desk. I don't like the feel of working on flat, white, shiny plastic. It feels too much like actual work then. I guess it's a personal thing. BUT, cowhide, leather, rustic wood.. this is all starting to sound a little den meets dude-ranch, which of course is not what I'm going for. A sleek white chair, Moroccan pouf, and gallery wall made up of gold frames all help to add a little girl back into the equation.

The finish of the shelving was a tough spot for me... I don't want too-perfect, cold, white shelving, but I also don't want to introduce any more wood tones or masculinity into the space.

One of my favorite (but small) collections, and the one I was most excited about putting in the space is made up of a bunch of vintage jadeite bowls, candy dishes and vases. Adding some of that type of finish into the mood board spurred me to think about staining wood cabinets and shelving a girly color, and wouldn't you know it, Minwax makes a beautiful warm minty green stain called antique jade. Instead of having the jadeite contrast with the shelving, I think it will only highlight to put it on shelves that carry the color throughout more of the room.

5. Source and gather the pieces

Reasons to shop - yay! Needing money to get what you want - sad trombone. Sooo... now I'll start the process of accumulating the items I want in the space, and attempt to be patient enough so that I don't have to eat ramen noodles while staining cabinets. I'll update you on the progress of the office when there's something to update you on!

What spaces in your house have you stumped? How is your design process different than mine? I'd love to hear about it in the comments!