Last August, I told you that I was planning on turning the small third bedroom of my house into a home office, and that I had had these plans for at least a year prior to that. 18 months later and I haven't done a single thing, but I finally realized why I haven't pulled the trigger yet...I've been imagining my home office in the wrong room. Some inspiration came to me recently that is going to result in the re-configuration of three rooms in my house. I was limiting myself by thinking that the largest bedroom in the house had to be my master bedroom, but as soon as I started thinking outside the box and entertaining the possibility of this room becoming my home office, it really got my creative juices flowing. What do I need all that space for if all I do is sleep in that room? So I've decided to get rid of having a guest bedroom and make that room, a much smaller room, my principal ("master") bedroom. My current master bedroom will become my home office/TV room, and what is now my TV room next to the kitchen will become a dining room. It will be nice to finally have a formal dining space for family dinners and for entertaining; so much better than having an eat-in kitchen as the only option. It's amazing, really, the great design ideas you can come up when you re-think a room's purpose other than the one it was traditionally designed to serve. For the re-design of all these rooms to work, I'm going to have to pull it off all at the same time. I've already got tons of ideas, but I think I'll wait until the spring to execute. In the meantime, here are some of my inspiration images:
This image of the Ruby Press PR firm office is one of my absolute favourites. It's not so much of an inspiration image as it is an image of what I already had in mind for my room. I've already sourced a white lacquer parson's desk, a moroccan rug and cube shelves for my future office, just like in this image. White walls, touches of gold, and pops of bold colour throughout finish this space perfectly. Seriously, it's like the firm's owner, Melissa Davis (who also designed the space), plucked this room right out of my design daydreams.
The studio of Margaret Elizabeth Jewelry has many of the same elements I love about the last image - white lacquer desk, moroccan rug, white walls, touches of gold.
In terms of layout, I like this image of Rue Magazine Associate Editor Kelli Ryder's dining room/office. My master bedroom has a bay window just like this and it would be nice to set up my desk in the window nook.
In the dining room, I want to go for intense drama. I want dark walls. I love the look of black walls, like in the Ralph Lauren Home dining room above, and I'm not afraid to do it, but I'm also playing with the idea of a deep, dark blue. I have an antique wood dining table and pressback chairs and I think that the natural wood will pair better with blue. Kind of like in this image:
The blue in this dining room has undertones of teal and I've noticed myself leaning towards this colour more and more lately. Whichever dark colour I end up choosing, you'd better believe that I'm going to paint the door and window trim that colour, too.
I won't need to make any major changes to the guest bedroom - I painted it a blue colour that has grey undertones a couple of years ago and I still really like it, so all I need to take care of in there is furniture re-arrangement and new bedding. This is going to be a fun project, I'll be sure to share the before and after photos once I get started.
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| via Lonny |
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| via The Everygirl |
The studio of Margaret Elizabeth Jewelry has many of the same elements I love about the last image - white lacquer desk, moroccan rug, white walls, touches of gold.
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| via Leopard and Lavender |
In the dining room, I want to go for intense drama. I want dark walls. I love the look of black walls, like in the Ralph Lauren Home dining room above, and I'm not afraid to do it, but I'm also playing with the idea of a deep, dark blue. I have an antique wood dining table and pressback chairs and I think that the natural wood will pair better with blue. Kind of like in this image:
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| Rue Magazine via Pinterest |
I won't need to make any major changes to the guest bedroom - I painted it a blue colour that has grey undertones a couple of years ago and I still really like it, so all I need to take care of in there is furniture re-arrangement and new bedding. This is going to be a fun project, I'll be sure to share the before and after photos once I get started.
