Home Office Renovation

One morning, while Deuce was at school and RG was napping, I was in the kitchen doing dishes, and I heard a massive crash in the front of the house.  It made me jump, and I’m always so paranoid, I thought someone was trying to break in. I cautiously went to the front and saw that our shelving in our home office pulled out of the drywall. It came crashing down onto the printer.  

The worst part? My husband had been saying for weeks that I was stuffing too much stuff on the shelves. He said that they couldn’t hold that much weight. I kept brushing it off because I recall the installers saying it could carry about 50 pounds. Sadly, I’m not a very good judge of weight or distance, so there was probably 70 pounds worth of stuff in the cabinets, and I still thought it was less than 50lbs…

When we were building our home, we wanted built-ins in the office, but at the time, it was cost-prohibitive, and we knew it was something we could do later down the line. For the short term, we did a modular shelving concept that I found on Pinterest. It maximized storage, and then we did bookcases on the side to complete the space. We have a ton of books and wanted to be able to store them neatly and create a library of sorts. 

We thought through getting the modular shelf fixed and re-installed and storing it with less stuff, but we had just gotten the boys’ Playroom completed and thought if the kids got a new room, so should we! We called Perez Home Concepts, who had done our boy’s playroom to see if they could take on the project.

While I loved our previous office design and didn’t see anything wrong with it, I wanted something a bit more classic for the office that wouldn’t become outdated in a few short years.

We discussed with Perez Home Concepts what our wish list and key needs were for the office. We wanted to make it a productive workspace for both of us. I’m a bit of a packrat, so I was in desperate need for more drawer space for stationary, cards, and craft items. My husband, Demetrius, needed more space for filing. Ultimately, Perez Home Concepts came back with a design that met both our needs. 

The most challenging part of this project? Decluttering the existing office. As I mentioned, I’m a packrat, so pulling everything out of there to make room for the new built-ins forced me to declutter and do quite a bit of filing. I waited for RG to go down for naps to clear everything out and temporarily store it in the dining room, then go through it all. Since I was limited to RG’s nap time, the entire process took about a week to get everything out, and another week to put everything back.  

For color, we went back and forth with our decision of what would be best. Initially, I planned on keeping it with the original color of the office, which was black and white, so that we could keep all the existing furniture and décor in the room. However, when I started looking at swatches, this beautiful deep blue color kept whispering my name! I kept coming back to it, I loved it but wasn’t sure if it would be something five years down the line that looked outdated. Ultimately, I went with my gut, and we proceeded with the blue and changed out all of the office furniture and décor pieces. 

I selected gold hardware that I ordered off Amazon to compliment the dark blue woodwork.

I asked Perez Home Concepts if they could add a wood onlay to the doors. I saw it on a few inspiration pics and fell in love with the look.

We added a Pottery Barn organization system in a light birch wood color to keep us organized, a light grey suede office chair from World Market that’s both comfy and stylish, and a side table from Kirklands next to a light blue chair from Wayfair that sits in front of our window. We wanted a place where we could both be in the office and work together if need be. Having an additional chair and side table gives us that space. One of us can be at the computer at the desk, while the other is on the laptop in the accent chair.

I added simple white drapes to accent the window and brighten up the room, and a gold light fixture to compliment all the gold hardware on the built-ins.  

We are enjoying our new office space. While I complained at the time about having to sort through everything and declutter, it helped both of us to get more organized so that we can both be more efficient. If you don’t currently love the office in your home, or any room for that matter, or are looking at buying a house, but the rooms aren’t what you envisioned, be encouraged! With time and saving, you can make almost any room into your dream space.