Wednesday, April 6, 2011

The Office/Guest Room Reveal

This is probably going to look like one of those really dramatic, awesome before & reveals because the only before photos I have of the office/guest room are of the room in complete disarray. I'm feeling brave today so I'll let you see what the room looked like right before we decided to give it a nice freshening up.

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Lets break down the issues with this space - the room is pretty narrow, it's only 8.5' wide and it's about 16' long; there was really dingy, cheap carpeting; the area rug purchased to help disguise the ugly carpet never laid correctly and was always awkwardly bunched up; there was way too much furniture in the room (2 dressers, 2 desks, futon, very large swivel chair, dress form, old nightstands from bedroom, etc) ; when we opened the futon for guests (i.e. my parents) you couldn't actually walk around the foot of it; I think you get the situation, it was just not very functional.

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The first step was taking everything out of the room and installing new laminate flooring. You can see the almost finished results of that here.

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The inspiration for the room decor is actually the same as it was when we moved in about 3 years ago, it's just better executed now. I was inspired by our trips to Greece where all of the buildings are painted a chalky white and the main accent is a shade of blue that mimics the color of the Mediterranean Sea. Decor is mainly rustic, medium toned woods, iron work, and fishing boat paraphernalia. It's usually pretty simple and revolves around function.

We painted the walls a soothing gray blue for the walls (Sherwin Williams 6515 Leisure Blue) when we first moved in but I had some patching and touch up painting to do.

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The futon, 1 dresser, and one bookcase came back into the room. The futon got a new white cover (that desperately needs to be ironed), some rope textured throw pillows and a cozy purl knit throw from west elm. The bookcase is just a simple white Billy from Ikea but to open it up a bit I removed the cardboard backing. Believe it or not, that piece of cardboard provides a lot of structural stability so I added a few L brackets to make it sturdy. You can see the bookcase in last week's sneak peek post.

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I opted for one larger desk that the two of us can share instead of two separate desks. It works great with the limited space we have. The desk is the Vika Amon table top with Vika Moliden legs from Ikea. I love the weight of the chrome legs, I let you know how durable the top is after some months of crafting and computing. The small storage units on each side of the desk are Micke from Ikea and are nicely concealing a lot of my crafting supplies, sewing machine, and the computer tower. My two favorite new items just arrived yesterday and they are the accordion side tables from Urban Outfitters. The petite size is perfect for the room and I love the industrial look and rustic finish.

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The new room feels much less claustrophobia, we actually enjoy hanging out in here now. The most important thing is that the space actually functions well as both an office and a guest room because it wasn't functioning as either before. What do you think?

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5 comments:

  1. It looks great! The flooring makes a huge difference, as does editing the furniture. Guests will now have somewhere to put their bags!

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  2. love the desk set up and LOVE LOVE the rope pillow!

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  3. Definitely much more open! I know that makes a huge difference in your work attitude!

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  4. @Taylor Thank you Taylor I wish I could get a better photo of the work area, it's really great.

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  5. @Juliette You're right it definitely does, I actually enjoy spending time working the space now.

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