An office transformation

Welcome back to the transformation of my first apartment! Today, let’s talk about my office.

Before

The office was probably the easiest room to tackle. It was less gross than other spaces with less holes and hooks hanging off the walls. And it’s smaller, so painting didn’t take as long.

Before I started, it was yet another bright white box.

Reds!

The first thing I knew was that I wanted a deep red accent wall. I used to have beige walls and red trim in my NYC apartment (the last place I was able to paint) and I LOVED it. So I knew I’d love something like that again.

This time I decided to reverse it. I’d do a whole accent wall (which turned into two) in the red with a beige trim and beige on the other walls in the room.

Taa daa! Painted.

Desk

For awhile, the office was my workshop. I sanded benches and dressers in here. I applied top coats. I stored piles of things while I worked.

But once the more urgent spaces (bedroom, kitchen) were well underway and the weather turned nicer (meaning I could sand outside) I cleared the space and added the next thing an office needs:

a desk.

I chose a simple wooden table from Ikea and coated it in (you guessed it) tung oil. Then I added a bulletin board (painted with the same colors as the room) and some storage to make the desk more useful for me.

Bookshelves

Obviously the other thing I needed to build right away was bookshelves. I decided to dedicate about half the wall behind my desk to bookshelves (Ikea Ivar units, tung oiled). Then beside those, I added two hanging plants and a basket underneath.

Gallery wall

My other plan from the start was to put together a gallery wall. Originally, I thought I’d do it on the red wall, but when I held up frames on both walls, I decided to start with the beige.

The gallery wall primarily features book-related things (quotes, posters, mementos from traveling to book locations) and art created by important people in my life.

Seedling station

Now here’s the part of the office I didn’t plan for: my plant station! Turns out this is the best spot in the house to let seedlings and propagations soak up some sunshine. So I grabbed a little desk from a thrift shop (which I will likely later sand down and tung oil, but for now has just been cleaned) to create a little space.

After

Other finishing touches included adding shelves on the side of my closet (which acts as the entryway to the office), finding a super cute pink office chair, and using my ever-growing book collection as art objects for display.