Sometimes you have to live in a space for a little while before you start to see ways to improve it.
We have 2 spare rooms on our top floor, and we converted one into an office. However, after living in the house for a while we found that the room we had selected to be the spare guest bedroom was the brightest room in the house, and the one we had selected to be the office was quite dark and gloomy. And so – we flipped them!
Now, the brightest room in the house is my design studio – and it brings me immense joy to spend time in there.
(You can see the new guest bedroom on our ‘Safari Glam’ blog – Hope you like green and gold!)
Before
Rooms are constantly in transition in the home of an interior decorator. The photos with the striped bed are the listing photos from when we purchased the house. Right after moving in we painted 1 wall in this spare room, added decals, and I designed it as a floral guest bedroom.
(Spoiler alert – stay tuned to see where this beautiful brass bed ended up! The rest? down to the basement spare room… which is certainly not picture-worthy – but it’s functional!)
After
The moment you open the door to the design studio it gives you a burst of joy – as should every room in your home, especially your home office.
The area rug is the most important piece in this room (closely followed by the yellow dresser – and one would not work without the other). It was a risk going so bold, but the moment I saw it I knew it had to be in this room (and it helped that my friend pointed out it looks like our logo!). So I used this area rug as a focal point with my workhorse metal and glass drafting table featured overtop and kept everything else very neutral, with stark white walls x3.
The room is spacious and airy, and yet it feels warm and inspiring. This is a creative space where I need to be buzzing with excitement, and this room now supports that initiative.
Decor
HELLO YELLOW!
My fiance painted an old green dresser that we had gotten for free from a friend. It is called ‘sunshine yellow’ and sunshine it is! I picked up these black drawer pulls with slots for labels at the Vintage Verandah in Cochrane – I can’t wait to print out some labels to slide in, but this will be an ongoing and developing task.
Plants are extremely important to me. This room has real plants, silk plants, and even a crochet plant (can you tell which is which?). Being that this is the sunniest room in the house it is also desperately needed for my plant obsession (because I kill things so easily).
Books are also my favourite decorating tool. They are not only colourful and fun, they are functional – since I can always refer to them when I’m at my desk.
The big mostly-empty dark blue wall is used for brainstorming and planning. It is the perfect wall to tape up magazine clippings and tack up clips with samples, creating a physical collage as I plan out projects.
The white ladder shelf I have had forever and holds items that are important to me personally – as well as my camera collection (there are 3 – but I’m using on to take the picture!). It also holds my accordion files/boxes where I store brochures and business cards from suppliers.
Lastly, the room also doubles as a craft room. The white desk against the wall and the corner shelf are dedicated to crafting, scrapbooking, and colouring. They do not take away from the ‘design’ space at all.
And there you have it! A look at where the magic is made.