Let me first begin by saying that if you take a look at my Office, Closet, Dressing Room Pinterest Board, you can get a feel for my overall inspiration on this room, which is the most feminine room in the entire house. Please note that this is the only room that looks like this and that I do not force my husband to live in a pink, black, and white world {though honestly, he probably wouldn’t mind at all}.
DISCLAIMER: I had to shoot the room with both my Nikon D5000 and my iPhone because I don’t have a wide angle lens… thus the differences between the colors in the photos. Also, I swear the room and curtains are not crooked, it’s a photo illusion…
I’ve shown you a bit of the other end of this space here, so I thought I’d give you a big helping of what the sitting area looks like right now, which if you refer to my home office before post photos, you can probably get a better visual feel for the space. This is just left of the door you walk in from the living room, in front of the sliding glass door.
if you walk in and look directly to your left
above view of the little coffee table
I was extremely excited to be able to have a little sitting area in my office with the flatscreen that used to be in our old master bedroom. The husband thought it was “too small” for our new master and bought an even larger one that’s hanging on the wall in there. So I got the “small one” {lol} for my office. Beneath the TV is my grandma’s antique secretary desk which I used in my old office to store all of my jewelry and accessories. Now it holds fabric. Beneath it is a vintage suitcase {that was my mom’s} which is full of fabric as well but used to store vintage books. I found a fun little tropical scrap of fabric to tie in the colors a little and set my DirecTV box on top of it. I found the vintage bust on ebay and the vintage brass bird figurines at Atlantis Dry Goods.
I found the large striped cat figurine on ebay as well whilst looking for the perfect animal figurine… and though I have not quite found what I’m looking for to fit the space, the cat makes me giggle because it looks like a cross between both my dogs {one of which stares out the window and grumbles on a daily basis while wearing a hoodie sweatshirt}, it will probably end up in the bright guest room at the end of the upstairs hallway. But it’s here for now. Sitting in a large gold urn.
My mom found the amazing little vintage brass coffee table at The Salvation Army for $30 after a visit up where I told her what I was looking for, she texted me a photo of the table a few days later and I told her to BUY IT! She got another 15% off because it was a sale day. Such a bonus. However, it needs a good polishing, which I haven’t gotten around to doing just yet {just like I haven’t gotten around to steaming the curtains in the living room}.
I bought the black chairs, pink bolsters, and Flokati rug and added our little white accent tables {you can see here in our Old Living Room} to fill out the spaces next to the chairs.
Now that I’ve lived with the chairs for a while, I’m thinking they may find a new home up in the master bedroom and I’ll purchase a chaise lounge or daybed for this area instead. Sometimes you just have to live in a space for a while to see how it suits you the best. This is mainly why when I purchase new items for the house I make sure I can use them in more than one location just in case they don’t work out in the original one. But I like them for now.
The amazingly awesome and somewhat gaudy gold leaf lamp was a gift from Lamps Plus. I mean I just about died when I saw it because it was so perfect for the space. They also have a short version called the Renaissance Table Lamp.
The little piece of art below is a Kathie Olivas small oval painting and was a gift from my husband when we were still living in our condo. In fact, when we moved to our second rental he found it headed for the garbage on moving day. It was wrapped up and at the bottom of a box. It almost got the boot and I’m so happy he saved it… it’s one of my favorite pieces.
The little dragon is actually the spout to an antique Oriental tea pot {which you can get a closer look at here} if you look on the coffee table photos, there’s a little saucer from the same collection. It was my mom’s or grandma’s maybe, Masumi’s? I can’t remember but after one of the many moves or earthquakes some of the dishes broke. When my mom gave them to me I decided the spout was art.
My stepdad gave me his vintage cowhide rug because my mom wouldn’t let him use it in their house {that’s why I got the bull’s head skull too… which used to hang over our mantel in the old house and now resides high in our stairwell – and so lucky to get such awesome hand me downs} I overlapped the Flokati with the cowhide for texture and color and to lengthen the space {and hide as much carpet at possible}.
Here’s a longer shot of the sitting area from just behind my work table…
and below, a view from the sitting area to the workspace/vanity area
and directly opposite the sitting area… my desk/workspace
This is where I spend most of my days working. It’s an amazing space and while I do like it and enjoy being in here, it’s not really finished just yet. It’s still kind of thrown together in a way, meaning, I’m not exactly quite sure how or when it will be finished because it’s functional and pretty at the moment. But like art, I’ll know when it’s done.
I haven’t really had to purchase a whole lot of new stuff for this room {or the house really} because I come from a family of savers and passers down, and have had a few of these pieces for just about 10 years now.
You can find much of the same furniture in my old office, though really, I’m not sure how any of it fit. My two narrow Ikea dressers that I painted, distressed, and added lion’s head pulls to, work nicely next to each other in between the bathroom and the closet. While the three low white Ikea dressers side by side {just as they were in my old office} still work splendidly as a vanity now with my mirror from Lamps Plus and vintage Italian lamps. This area isn’t quite done yet either… I’m searching for the perfect vintage sconces to hang on either side of the lamps.
not the best photo, but the angle from the door where you enter
I used the same white Ikea Expedit shelving unit and desk, but since I had the extra space {and needed the storage} I brought in the freestanding Expedit unit that we were using as a room divider in our old living room.
I repurposed our old white kitchen table, sitting on my NuLoom zebra rug, and use it as my workspace {but often it gets folded laundry piled on it}. I swapped out the white wooden chairs that came with it for the black Panton chairs from Lamps Plus to modernize it a little and make it look less like a kitchen table.
The floor shelving unit/bench of sorts that sticks out from my desk and under the window was in my old office as well, under the window. It’s really sturdy so I leave that pillow on it as an extra seat, but mostly it holds more magazines and my ugly printers and fax machine. {drollgirl and I found them in the trash “area” at the gallery a few years ago and dragged them into our cars, lol. There were four but we each took one}
The curtains/drapes are still not completely finished either. I was so ridiculously happy when I found them {I had to custom order them on HalfPricedDrapes.com} but because the fabric was limited, I chose rod pockets rather than pinch pleats to cover more of the window area. The windows are about 100″ wide… the pole pocket panels took 3 to cover each window whereas the pleated version would have needed 4 to cover each window and they didn’t have the stock.
But now that I’ve lived with them for a while, I don’t really need to be able to open and shut them since really, there are not too many people in our area that would be peeping in, watching me work at my desk {hopefully anyway} which is another reason I opted for the pocket look rather than rings. If I was opening and closing them daily, the rings would be much easier to slide across the poles since the ceilings are so high. I like that it feels a little old Hollywood glam without the rings, kind of a bit old fashioned, but I haven’t fully decided on what will be the finishing touches on the drapes.
the edge of my desk from this post
Really, there is so much still to be done to this room and the entire house. It’s always a work in progress but at this point, there is really only ONE room in the entire house that is complete, and that’s the beachy guest bedroom I just worked on with Sherwin Williams {final reveal of that room soon!}. But soon enough, it will all be complete. Hopefully sooner than later. But until then, my office is an exceptional place to work.
Links…
* Old Home Office
* DIY Tassel Curtains and Ikea Dressers Hack
* Closeup on the lamps & storage projects as well as the floor shelving unit/bench.
* DIY Cork Board ~ Inspiration Wall
* Organizing my Jewelry and Accessories
* Old OLD closet and storage at our condo {see the Kathie Olivas art on the wall and the tall Ikea dressers before I made them awesome}
* You can see a ton of my Decor Details here… though they’re in my old office space, I’m using most of them in here as well.
* Animal Figurines post… I’m still on the hunt!
Gifted from Lamps Plus: Panton Chairs sitting at the table, the gold leaf floor lamp, and the Uttermost Ablenay Hand Forged Frame 37″ High Mirror
