Home Office/Library Makeover

We are still full steam ahead on our Fixer Upper house. Today, I thought I'd show you the home office makeover.

Originally, this room was probably designated as the dining room, as it is off the kitchen and had a center ceiling light fixture. This room is not very large, maybe twelve by thirteen feet. The previous owner had used the front living room space as dining room, and the dining room space as home office. We liked that layout, and so we kept it. After all, we don't live very formally. We have a family room on the main floor and a basement movie viewing space. We really don't need a living room.

The office was pretty bare, tan on tan. Much like the dining room, I had the feeling that this room was rarely used for any purpose. It was staged with what they had, and that was it.

The main feature of the room was a GINORMOUS ceiling fan/light fixture that looked like it belonged on the nose of a jumbo jet. It was way too big and overpowering for the room. I am all of 5'3", and if I can touch the fixture, then you know it's too big and way too low. It was the first thing to go!

We began with paint. I'm choosing colors from the Sherwin Williams/HGTV Coastal Cool palette for this house. There is a lot of warm yellow woodwork in this house that just needs to be toned down with some soothing colors. For this room , we chose Sea Salt for the walls above the chair rail, and Accessible Beige for the walls below. We filled it with some of the old things we love, and added a few new things to the mix to tie it all together.

(Parsons chair, slipcovered, with casters from Ballard Designs. Wall organizers and wreath from Smith and Hawken (Target). Painting from Dayspring)

I LOVE LOVE LOVE these curtains from Ballard Designs! They are called Document, and they are covered in French script. So lovely! I hope they will inspire me to write more often! The windows are tall and narrow, so we purchased one panel for each window, and used a tieback (from Home Depot) to swag them to the side.

Our home office printer decided to die shortly after the move. I think the former HP model was more than ten years old. We replaced it with this sleek Canon Pixma, a wireless printer that even allows us to print from our phones.

This house has very little in the built-in shelving department, so this little hutch is now crammed with books. This hutch used to belong to my husband's grandmother, and we have loved it at every house for all these years. It has held china in dining rooms, baby toys in a nursery, decorations in a hallway. And here. it is repurposed once again in our office/library!

Our oversized chair and ottoman still needs a nice floor lamp, but it's still a great spot for reading a book or working on a stitching project near the window's afternoon light. I catch my husband here often, reading a book. That's why we refer to the room as the library now. I like the word "library". It's so much cozier than "office", don't you think?

My mom's vintage yarn basket is the perfect spot to stash my needlework projects, along with a pair of cheater/reading glasses and my nice Gingher scissors.

Here's the secret...I slip-covered the chair and ottoman with a selection from Surefit that I found on Overstock.com. Do you like the look of slipcovers? My husband is never a fan of their sloppy nature, but I think this one matches the feel of the room much better. Who knows...the red plaid chair may make an appearance again over the holidays.

This half moon table was a gift from my Mom, who had once received it as a gift from my childhood family pastor.

My parents grandmother clock looks so perfect here! This is the view into the dining room.

I found this ceiling mount light fixture at Ballard. It's a much better size and scale than the behemoth ceiling fan, and the drop crystal adds a little bling, too! Just don't look too closely. It doesn't have all of the light bulbs in yet because we need an electrician to come and fix the wiring and wall switch. Future project!

One of the neat features of this room is that it has a door that leads out to the wrap around front porch. For this reason, I made certain that the colors in this room didn't clash with the door color, but instead, they compliment the shades I chose for the front porch cushions.

The home office is adjacent to the kitchen, which will be the next room to get painted. I think I am going to opt for Lemongrass, the color on the left, to go with the colors on the right that we've already used in the home office/library, foyer and dining room. The boys have told me "Enough blue already! We want to see some green!" I think that Lemongrass will have a nice feel for the kitchen, and will help give the sunroom a botanical feel.

Every time we paint a room, I feel as if the ketchup and mustard house is letting out a soothing sigh, as if to say "Thank you! That was just what I needed!"

For those of you asking "Where's the cards, lady?", I promise I will get back to papercrafting this week! As I told someone the other day, home improvement and redesign is a lot like card making, but done on a larger scale. Choosing colors, textures, proportion. It seems to be taking all of my creative energy these days!

Thanks for visiting the cafe today! Blessings!