It’s the final week of the Fall 2020 One Room Challenge! We’ve been pouring our heart and soul into our home office and I’m so excited to show you how it turned out!
Let’s take a quick trip down memory lane, shall we? Two months ago, the room looked like this:
Fluorescent light, barely functional window shades, mismatched storage – yikes. It was a hot mess combination of storage/overflow/office/extra guest bedroom and unfortunately due to the French doors, we saw the room every. single. day. Since the day we moved in, I’ve been dreaming of this being a cozy home office + library and it makes me so happy to see this vision come to life!
After removing all the old trim and beadboard paneling, Justin and I took primed shiplap and ran the planks vertically all around the room and on the ceiling. We put extra effort into making sure the ceiling planks lined up with the wall planks, and I think that effort was definitely worth it! I chose the color Treron by Farrow and Ball and had it color-matched at Lowe’s for all the walls, ceiling, trim, and built-ins.
The olive green color strikes just the right balance for me – not too dark, not too light, not too brown, not too green. It’s a bit of a chameleon color and changes a little depending on the lighting but it’s just a nice warm that makes the room feel so cozy.
Without a doubt, the star of the room is the gorgeous built-in. This showstopper took the room from no storage to tons of storage. The bottom portion is Ikea cabinets with Semihandmade doors and I love them so much. They look custom-made but for a fraction of the price! If you’ve been following along in my Instagram stories, you know that I had two different options for hardware but didn’t feel like either was quite right so I ordered a third set. I’m still waiting on those cabinet pulls and knobs to arrive and I think they’ll be the perfect finishing touch. Stay tuned!
Back in the planning stages, I debated on whether to do a built-in desk or keep it freestanding, then whether to do all cabinet doors or have a section of drawers as well. I’m so happy with my decision to do a freestanding desk and include a section of drawers in the middle. It provides tons of easily accessible and functional storage and with the desk in the middle, the room actually feels perfectly proportioned.
Justin and I worked together to build the bookshelves from scratch and we are both thrilled with how well they turned out. I intentionally tried to pull in other colors and textures throughout the bookshelves, especially with light colors and natural fibers to break up all the olive green throughout the room. In addition to all our books, the shelves are filled with special mementos, heirlooms, family pictures, and artwork from travels, so it very much feels like us.
I also have functional items throughout – closed storage boxes holding office supplies, decorative jars filled with pens and pencils, trays for papers, etc. The shelves strike the perfect blend of meaningful, beautiful, and functional for us.
I think of this room as a home office and library all in one. As I imagined shelves full of books, I also imagined a cozy area to read them in. The bay window area provided the ideal place to add a comfy reading chair. I had been on the hunt for a reading chair in either yellow/gold, rust, burgundy, or something along those lines but everything I found was super expensive. Then a few weeks ago, I saw someone share a post from the thrift store in my hometown. One of the items pictured was a set of vintage yellow chairs circa 1970s (sold separately for $50 each) and my heart immediately leapt. I sent my mom on a mission to the thrift store to see if the chairs were comfortable and in good shape. They were, and I convinced her to buy one for me for Christmas. Score! Here’s the chair when it first arrived – my parents thought I was crazy, but I knew it had potential.
If you follow me on Instagram, you know I performed a little cosmetic surgery on the chair to remove the flap of fabric at the bottom and this made a huge impact in making it seem more modern.
I brought down the little side table from Vi’s room, but I eventually plan to replace it with something else (I’m feeling a little round table?) and I’ll also add a floor lamp at some point. For now, I’m happy with this space!
In addition to replacing the baseboards, we also tore off the old window casing and added new trim in a style inspired by Jenni Yolo at ISpyDIY. I also painted the existing window frames and grille inserts Tricorn Black by Sherwin Williams.
We had a slight fiasco with the bay window curtain rod because we didn’t realize that the side bars only extended 36″ max and we needed about 42″ but Justin came up with the brilliant idea to buy two cheap telescoping curtain rods and screw them into the angled attachment on the middle window’s curtain rod. This worked like a charm! The curtains are Ikea Ritva. I got them in 118″ length and then used hemming tape to shorten them a bit (I like a little pool at the bottom, but it was originally like 8″ too long). I hung them by attaching pleating hooks to the curtains and then hooking them through the eyelets of curtain rings. Rather than just putting the curtain rod through the loops of the curtain, this gave them a little extra oomph.
Another issue I ran into was rug size. Because of the bay window and angled doorway, the room is anything from square (don’t even get me started on how hard figuring out the crown molding was!). It left an awkward amount of floor space that I really needed a 6×9 rug for, but many of the rugs I loved only came in 5×7’6″ or 7’6″x9’6″. It was a frustrating search! Finally, I decided to try a layered rug look with a simple jute rug at the 6×9 size I needed and a patterned rug I loved in a 5×7’6″ size on top. This solution ended up working so well and I think it helps give the room a casual and cozy feel.
I am so so happy with how this room turned out! It is the room I was most excited about when we first moved in and it is now without question my favorite room in the house.
And it wouldn’t be a reveal without a few final before-and-afters, right?
I had so much fun participating in the Fall One Room Challenge! You can check out all the other fun projects that happened here.
And if you missed any of my previous posts on this challenge, you can check them out here:
Week Three: Halfway Point Progress
Week Five: Cabinet Doors Installed
Sources
Note: Some of these product links are to Amazon. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. This means if you purchase something through the Amazon link I provided, I may earn a small commission. None of my recommendations or decisions are based on any commission I might receive from your purchases, they are all things I actually bought for this renovation. The decision to buy something is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy one through the link I provide is completely up to you. Thank you!
Paint Color: Treron by Farrow and Ball (colormatched at Lowe’s) in Eggshell finish (walls + ceiling) and Satin finish (trim + built-ins).
Window Color: Tricorn Black by Sherwin Williams in Satin
Base Cabinets: Ikea
Door and Drawer Fronts: Semihandmade DIY Shaker
Curtain Rod (keep in mind, we changed out the side window rods with a longer telescoping curtain rod!)
Desk Chair is old – this one is similar
Black and White Butterfly Print
Almost everything else in the room is thrifted, heirloom, or bought a long time ago.
simplify the chaos 
Beautiful! Love the green you chose, and the full wall of built ins is dreamy! This is inspiring lots of ideas for my small home office 🙂 Enjoy your lovely new space.
Thank you so much! I’m definitely enjoying the new space 🙂
Wow!!!!! The built ins were a perfect solution for that area. The office looks incredible now.
Thank you so much!
It turned out beautifully! The shiplap on the ceiling and that wonderfully understated olive green throughout make it such a calming and mature space. It’s very en vogue, and yet I suspect it will remain timeless throughout the years. And it was definitely worth it to align the ceiling boards with the walls. It really carries the eye through the space and I suspect, gives it a sense of being a bit larger and longer than it is.
Thank you so much! I really appreciate your kind words!
I love how this office turned out! It’s almost exactly how I’d want my future office set up, congrats 🙂
Thank you, that is such a big compliment!