I am a very creative soul. I love to have art and beauty around me constantly. Well, last year I had enough and couldn’t take the lack of inspiration in my home office. Since I was the only one who used it my husband and I decided to gut it and make it solely for amrphotography. All summer I started gathering ideas and inspiration. I wanted the office to reflect my brand, my personality AND, most importantly, to flow with the rest of the house (seriously, I love so many differently styles..I’m always saying I need a house for every decor style!).  I wanted a space that was calm and inspirational, SO last October (two weeks before we left before our Russia mission trip…yes, we are crazy) we started the demo.

Here is the before. Yes, I took these with flash to make the before look even WORSE than it was. I admit it. I am not above adding in some extra drama.

This was a standard 10×10 room. The built in’s were there when we moved into the house already and although wonderful for storage made the room feel even smaller. They also were not the best of quality (they were just wooden shelves with the wall as the back). We decided to gut the room and start from scratch. So out came the bookshelves and the carpet.

After we gutted the room (and by “we” I mean my husband) then we (and by this “we”, I mean the contractor we hired) extended the hardwood floors from the rest of the house down the hallway to my office (which is by the kids’ rooms) and into the office itself. We then had a custom bookshelf made, painted, then added crown moulding and new baseboards. After hours and hours of work (supervising IS work) and hours and hours of shopping (shopping is NOT work), we got this end result:

I LOVE my new space. It is airy and light, soothing and inspirational. It is so much fun to go in there and edit or be on the phone or dream up new ideas. I love being able to look to my right and see my gallery wall (artistically arranged thanks to my friend Melinda) that has some treasured shots I’ve taken from random details, to my kids, to images from our travels. To my left all our favorite books are artfully arranged (thanks to my sister, Heather) and I especially love having my vintage book collection that I started in grade school on beautiful display.  Behind me, is my favorite comfy crushed velvet covered vintage chair from my prop stash (which I’ve been dying to have work well in some room of the house).  I think though, my absolute favorite piece of all in here is my desk chair. The chair I really wanted was $700 and that was just not going to happen. I was so sad because I needed something and it was the last piece for the room. I wanted it to be right!  One day after making a trip to my fav antique shop,  I decided to randomly  pop into the thrift store next door. This beauty of a chair was in the back of the store with angels circling around it singing. I got it for $30 and didn’t have to do anything to it but wipe it down with a dust rag. Perfection.

This was truly a laborious process but worth it. I finally have an artistic space that is COMPLETED yet still has room for me to add little treasures here and there to contribute to a more lived in feel. I’m excited about adding to it in the future and spending time in here being creative. This is a peaceful, calm, CLEAN, “no kids allowed” zone!