Monday, August 15, 2011

Changes at Home- A New Office

At our house, summertime is usually when we tackle projects at home & get the majority of things done because my husband is a teacher & is off.  When we redid our house when we first moved in, we pretty much got everything done the first summer and then kind of stopped after that.  This summer, we really didn't do much except decide what we wanted to to do with a few spaces.  yay for us.

And we did this:





Having our second little guy on the move pretty much put a stop to projects unless there's a babysitter around.  Our house has 5 bedrooms but two of them on our on lower level.  We've been using one as a guest room and the other as my husband's workout room/ our storage room.  The business is growing quickly & at this point I'm trying to avoid moving out of my house into an office (a number of reasons: schedule, expense, working in my SWEATS and I feel like I'd never see my family} SO...  we rearranged our storage (which is mostly clients' odds & ends /  furniture) and got a storage unit ,and my husband has been working out with friends out of the house daily anyway, so we stored the bench press & big weights and now have a freed up room for an additional office. yay!!


{Windsor Smith's office in House Beautiful...  Love those white board charts!!}

Anyway, unfortunately, the room has had a drop ceiling (arrggggg) so we tore it down in about 20 minutes a couple of weeks ago while the kids were napping.  It also has weird walls.  Like really weird.  I really don't know what the previous owners were thinking here...  It was some sort of painted peg board??  All over the drywall panelling??  So, we have a lot of unfun stuff to do before the pretty part.   We're tearing that down & exposing the drywall/ painting and adding in a normal ceiling.  The carpet in there is perfeectly clean/ new but I'm thinking of addding in more wall to wall seagrass.  My husband & I are worthless at drywalling, so our contractors are coming in to save the day.

I looove my current home office except it's open off of our family room so there are times when I (or my assistant- Meghan!) need to escape to quiet, so I'm excited about adding this new "quiet" space. I think it will be Meghan's office and I'll store the lamptop there & work in there half the time, but I'll probably continue working out projects on the large work table in the main office.  { I also bug Meghan all day long so she might get more work done this way ;) ;)


Suzanne Kasler's studio---- looooooove!!

Anyway, it's a very teeny space so I've been playing with floorplans & furnishings.  Another thing I'm just getting into is its mood.  Offices I tend to love are bright & large & open & airy feeling. 

{Thomas O'Brien's house.  I want this.  Really.}


This one will be more cramped cozy.


So I really want to figure out the mood here, because that open & airy thing just isn't happening.  I'm thinking of going a tad warmer & maybe a little vintage libraryish...


{Obviously still large but it has a cozier vibe}

I'll keep you posted and will be sure to post before & afters.  eeeeek can't wait!

xoxo, Lauren

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