Office Progress

Hello Friends! Hope you are all enjoying your weekends and dodging the crazy, holiday crowds. I thought I would give you a sneak peak at our office/guestroom.  Like many spare bedrooms, this space went through many transitional stages. Luckily, it's feeling almost finished these days.

Stage 1. A Clean Palette

A room with so much potential. We had so many visions, it was hard to choose just one for this extra space.

Stage 2:  Let's Paint

Last April, as a birthday present, DP finally picked out a paint color and we set out to turn the spare bedroom into a mancave (with a little feminine charm, of course.) Although a bit dark for my taste, the paint color looked great once it hit the walls, but we still had the problem of how to fill the space. How does one pick out furniture for a cave?


Stage 3: Half Cave/Half Guestroom?

When we moved from a small apartment (like-ridiculously small) into a two-bedroom condo, we were eager to take any furniture people would throw at us. This was my brother's XL Twin bed, that my mom was going to throw out graciously gifted us. DP and I typically get one or two overnight guests per year, so we quickly realized this large piece of furniture was taking up too much space and was hardly functional. It soon hit Craig's List.

Stage 4. Make a Functional Space. Finally.

We replaced the bed with a cozy couch that I scored at BIG LOTS a while back for just $200.00. It's great for the occasional guest that needs somewhere to crash, but still provides a place to read, or eventually watch TV, once we mount one to the opposite wall. It doesn't take up near as much space as the XL Twin-sized bed, and we were able to add a great area rug from IKEA.

The desk area is sort of hidden beside the open shelving, which we like because it defines the space as mancave but it's not the first thing you see when you walk into the room. Let's face it, a large monitor and clunky keyboard can be a bit of an eyesore.

Oh, and Nikki even has a place to store her toys right beside that great hand-me-down wicker chair. We're working on traning her to put them back in the basket after she plays with them. It's not going too well.

The open shelving unit makes the space feel a tad larger. At first, I was nervous to add any type of shelving because I feel like they tend to make a space feel "junked up" and heavy.  We love that we can hide tons of paperwork and clutter in baskets and pull-out shelving.

We even added a few personal touches.


So there you have it! The many stages of our spare bedroom. A little wall art, and we may actually stamp this one FINISHED!

BEFORE

AFTER