I shot a few photos the other day of my office decor progress and was editing them to share with you when I realized I never posted any “before” shots. So I went through my archives and found a few photos I took before we moved in, some while we were on a quick overnight visit, and then the day we moved in when it was full of boxes.
It was originally painted “Sandstone” like the rest of the house, but the ceiling beams were a darker taupe/peachy color {as you can see above and in a few below}… it was not great, but livable. I brought the vintage cowhide my stepdad gave me from his collection and my Warhol “Shoes” print on one of our trips up just to make it feel homey. It’s really sort of difficult to get a feeling for the room or the size without any furniture in it. But here goes…
This is the far end, where my desk, work table, dressers & closet are. You can see it a little here
Wood door is to my closet… The open door is to the bathroom…
Sliding glass door to the deck…
I face this area when sitting at my desk.
This house happened to have two master bedrooms, one upstairs and one down. The downstairs master bedroom off of the living room/great room and what you see here has the major walk in closet and larger bathroom and would make for a nice master bedroom, however it’s downstairs. And since there was another room upstairs, a little bigger in size but lacking the walk-in and with a smaller bathroom, it was an easy decision to make this the sort-of …love Maegan headquarters and keep the personal stuff upstairs. This is also nice if I have a crew over working or shooting in my office, as well as keeps work downstairs and sleeping upstairs. Finding a working home balance is not always easy.
What’s great about my job{s} is that they all include style, fashion, and/or beauty, so to have my closet and wardrobe right here next to my desk, as well as my bathroom and beauty essentials, makes it really really really functional. And I’m so lucky to have the space to work in as well.
In our last house, I kind of had no choice but to share an office with my closet/dressing room because there was really no other space for it. It was a much smaller house with small closets. {see my old home office/closet/dressing room here which I loved nonetheless} But whenever I was working on a project I’d have to drag all my supplies from the hall closet into the kitchen or dining room to work at a table, meanwhile spreading the mess throughout the house. Again, I’m so lucky to have this space now which houses everything from my shoes and underwear to my DIY supplies and fabric, as well as my desk and the old kitchen table to work on.
Here’s the walkway to my office from the living room/great room…
On a quick visit up and after beginning to paint the paneled walls in my closet {which looked like the wall above but 10 times darker} and complaining about how many coats of primer I was going to have to use {I’ll show you photos of that too, I can’t believe I haven’t actually!} my husband went out to get us food and randomly found a painter {Mike Zweber ~ Z Painting 909-273-0466}, who popped by the house 20 minutes later, gave us a quote, and we hired him to paint this room, the beams, and finish the closet I started {among other rooms in the house}. I had him paint the entire ceiling and beams white and chose Dunn Edwards “Silver City” for my office walls, which reads like a light gray with a hint of blue… unexpected but loved it.
We left Mike with the house keys to finish the work and didn’t see the house again until moving day a few weeks later. We packed our cars full and brought the dogs up and slept on an air mattress in the living room, watching DVD’s on my old computer. It was really sweet actually. When I look out the living room windows early in the mornings now, I get that same feeling I had that night.
Here’s what my office looked like after the new paint…
This random shelving unit was in my closet and I had the painters remove it for me because it was useless in there. Since it’s stained the same color as the trimwork in our living room, I’m now using it there as a console of sorts… You can see it here in the living room now
The movers arrived with our stuff the following morning and by the end of the day my office {and the rest of the house} looked a little like this…
Such a ginormous mess… it took me a few days to get started on this space, I honestly was like WTF do I even begin? But it has come together nicely and though not complete yet, I can’t wait to share it with you. It’s crazy to look back on these photos which seem like centuries ago but were only 5 months ago.
I’ll share my most recent “after” photos in a day or so 😉
