Although there's some more recent updates to share (get excited!) I figured I'd finish up our little office update. See the first part of the office progress here.
Once my desk was finished, the only thing left to do was move it into the room and clean up all the junk that we'd been stashing in the office.
The desk finished product:
Not bad, right? The iMac is actually Sean's work computer, but he brings it home for the summer so that he doesn't have to worry about theft. I'd actually love to get an iMac of our own at some point. I'm not the biggest fan of mac computers (even though I have and love an iPhone and an iPad) but I looooove the aesthetics of this computer. Beautiful form, sleek keyboard and mouse, only ONE cord to deal with!? SOLD!
A slightly different angle. I stole these chairs from the guest house because they were the only matching chairs I could find. They're not super comfy for long hours at the computer, but they'll do for now. And they look pretty. I love this Ikea Patrik chair in dark gray, but at $149 a pop it's not a purchase I'll be making any time soon.
I got rid of our file cabinet a while back because it seemed to take up a lot of unnecessary space, and switched to these file boxes I saw on Young House Love. I love them! These days almost everything is online (insurance paperwork, mortgage documents, etc.) so the amount of paper that is actually necessary to have around is very low. I think these look way cuter than a clunky file cabinet.
I picked up this cheapo Solsta sofa bed on Craigslist for $40 or so. It's a dead ringer for this Urban Outfitters version I've been eyeing for a while, but wayyy cheaper. Normally I shy away from upholstery on Craigslist, but this was formally in a little girl's room in a ritzy house in Manhattan beach, so the ick factor was pretty low. I wanted some small seating in the office, and I loved that this can fold out into a makeshift bed - we've actually already had guests sleep on it and they said it wasn't too bad.
My biggest complaint is the upholstery. There was a few marker stains on it that I tried to get off, which bleached the fabric and made it look way worse than when I started. Probably my bad, but I hate that the slipcovers aren't removable so I'm basically stuck with it.
For $40 I can't really complain, and it's nice to have a comfy place to sit while one of us is sitting at the desk and the other wants to chat. The dogs also loooove this couch (it's very low to the ground), so maybe it's better that it's cheap and we don't really care if it gets ruined!
I guess Ikea is the theme of this office. We use our beloved Helmer drawer unit for office storage. We've had this piece for a while and it's perfect for office storage, especially since we've never liked desks with drawers. We have every office supply imaginable (and some random accumulated junk) hidden away from view.
Arial view - since this room is so teeny it's hard to see everything! I think in this photo I'm actually standing on a chair in the hallway. Obviously this room hasn't been painted yet so you can still see where we patched up the doorway to the garage.
Alas, this is the state of my closet doors, still. We removed the beat up mirrored doors as soon as we moved in, thinking "how hard could it be to find plain white closet doors?"
The answer: really f-ing hard.
We found the perfect ones at Home Depot, only to figure out they had been discontinued (thanks Home Depot guy who gave us the pamphlet to take home and drool over). We honestly can't find anything in between cheapo looking plastic doors, and $400 (each) custom made wood doors. Sad face.
Another view!
Aaaaand another! I was playing around with camera settings on my Nikon D40 this day, so I have a million photos of the same thing.
What do you think of our new office? I'm loving it, it's already such a clean and inspiring place for me. I have some ideas up my sleeve for office decor. This was also one of the rooms Sean painted for me while I was away, so stay tuned to see what color we chose! We actually picked the color ages ago when we moved in, so it was a surprise to us, too.
"how hard could it be to find plain white closet doors? The answer: really f-ing hard."
ReplyDeleteAck! No kidding. My house has two closets with awful awful AWFUL mirrored closet doors that I can't seem to find a suitable replacement for. What gives?
And the desk you made looks awesome! Well done.