Turquoise & fuschia home office

This room’s been finished since fall, but I’ve tweaked it and organized it a bit since then. So, when I realized I never posted it on the blog, I figured it was time for a reveal.

This is my office space: it’s at one end of the house, next to Owen’s playroom (which opens into the garage) and one room away from the kitchen, and is the other side of the laundry room that I posted about HERE. It is so, so nice having a dedicated space for working from home, working on extracurriculars and keeping our house running.

The color scheme is the same as the laundry, since they share the space. The wall paint is Valspar – Aqua Quartz. The white was the house brand from Lowe’s, purchased in a big 5-gallon bucket as we have a LOT of cabinets/trim to paint white throughout the house. Fun times. We painted the cabinets and added new knobs, and also painted the countertop using a Rustoleum kit in Cobblestone. Crazy what a little paint can do, isn’t it?

The chair and pad are from Ikea, as is the clock and desk blotter (I used THIS tutorial from A Little Tipsy for customizing it). I recommend adding some rubber drawer liner material or thin chair leg floor protectors to the back, since the fabric makes it slide around a smooth desk. The hot pink damask fabric was an Etsy find from the fabricfetish shop; it’s from Jennifer Paganelli’s Queen Street line (pattern is Ellen, color is Fuchsia).

I found a cheap lamp in the Lowe’s clearance aisle and covered it following THIS tutorial from Dear Lillie. The white fabric is just a cut-up white flat sheet from Walmart – I used leftover material from making the utility sink skirt on the other side of the room. I added a year-in-review calendar I found for free through a Google search, and printed out a little bit o’ Southern sayings to make me happy (I just created it in Microsoft Word). I found the small frame at Hobby Lobby, and spray-painted a cheap dollar store frame for the calendar.

I used THIS tutorial to make the book-page wreath, pulling from a vintage Nancy Drew book I’ve had since childhood. It was a castoff from my hometown library during an inventory change, which is an added detail I love.

I added some fun decorations to the top shelf to girl-ify the space, since it’s all mine. The paper mache letter is from Hobby Lobby (wait until they are 50% off!), covered with the damask fabric using Mod Podge (I did the same thing to the Ikea clock). I covered the books with brown kraft paper – I bought a large roll of it on eBay several years ago. The heart paperweight was a gift from a friend, but I spray-painted it to add some color. I’ve already changed out the inspirational quotes in the easel several times.

So, the space was clean and looked pretty. Awesome. But, it also needed to function well.

On the left wall, I added a row of hooks and some hanging baskets to corral all the work/daycare stuff – purse, boots, diapers, extra clothes, paperwork – that needs to be carted back and forth each day. I found the basket half-off at Hobby Lobby and the rack on Amazon.

On the right wall, I added two silver magazine racks found on Amazon – they were meant for a bathroom, but the size and sturdiness work great for this space. My husband and I are both magazine junkies, so having a dedicated spot to store and find them (as opposed to scattered all over the house or stacked in a pile in the kitchen) has been helpful. I added name plates found (again, half off — there’s a trend) at Hobby Lobby in the scrapbooking section. I used my labelmaker, then hot-glued them on.

Behind the cabinets is where the magic happens, as it were. My main computer is a laptop, which frees up any cabinet space you’d otherwise use for a tower and keyboard.

On the bottom left, I added small tension rods to create shelving for four baskets, each labeled as follows:  File; Act; Recycle; Shred. Every day, I sort the mail (or any other paperwork, like daycare forms or recipes I’ve found) into one of these baskets, and then empty them accordingly once a week. “File” means it has a home elsewhere – for example, a donation receipt letter needs to be put in the Taxes folder upstairs, and an inspiration page from a magazine needs to be added to my Pinterest file. “Act” is for things that need to get done – say, a bill that needs to be paid or library books that should be returned. I found the baskets at Walmart over the years for different projects, hence the color differences. But hey, you work with what you’ve got, and the size is perfect. (If I ever saw two more white ones, though, my inner OCD would force me to snap them up.) Drawers on the right-hand side hold various office supplies – Post-It notes, notepads, my labelmaker, etc.

The top left cabinet holds stationery and supplies — stamps, return address labels, and cards. I found the baskets at Hobby Lobby and added the nameplates just like the magazine racks. It also holds my household chore ticker file — more on that later.

The top right cabinet holds more notecards, thank-you cards, and paint color cards.

The overhead cabinet is still a work in progress, but it holds my coupon binder and some other books/files that need a home. If I ever figure out what to do with it, I’ll add that picture here.

Overall, I love the space and it inspires me to stay organized and be more efficient.

Happy organizing!

Check out my other room re-dos:

Bright & colorful playroom

Turquoise & fuschia laundry

Shabby chic foyer

Craftsman-inspired chocolate-and-sage nursery