Designing my home office was so much fun for me! While I still have things to hang on the walls and some finishing touches, it’s still SUCH a big difference from how it started so I wanted to share it with you. Plus are you ever really “done” decorating a room? ;)
My husband, Matt, actually works from home as well and since sharing an office was just not an option for us, we had to get creative! Matt was working from home first, so one of the extra bedrooms was already claimed. In the finished part of our basement, we have large living room that has a little “nook” off of it that’s now my office! It has a weird ceiling but hey, I’m short so it doesn’t bother me and I’m just embracing it!
With my office being downstairs and now having a huge amount of natural light, I knew I wanted the walls to be a light color and the furniture to be white to help brighten the room! Combine that with cozy lamps and I’m set! With these parameters, I knew Ikea was going to be the best bet for what I wanted - reasonably priced, bright white and lots of storage!
After some serious “Pinteresting” I put together this inspiration board of the types of pieces I needed to store the things I have in my office. If you want to see more of my inspiration photos, I have an entire board dedicated to my home office found here.
I found “hacks” for my desk and my work station that I knew I had to do! First up was my desk! By combining two cabinets and a table top, I was able to have a desk with a huge workspace and lots of cabinets for $200! I’ve included the pieces I used below as well as links!
Two Alex Drawer Sets here + 1 Linnmon Tabletop found here
My Office chair can be found here
After the desk, I put together my storage wall. This is one of my favorite parts of the office because not only does it hold a lot of my stuff but I have started filling the wall above with some of my favorite things - quotes, photos and artwork from places I’ve traveled. This is also the part of my office that’s most visible from our downstairs living room!
The frames are a mixture of finds from Target & Michael's and the galvanized metal envelope is from Magnolia!
I created this storage space with 2 cabinets from IKEA then filled some of the cubes with storage inserts made for these specific cabinets. A paper trays and drawers help both organize and hide all the "stuff". I use the paper tray organizer to keep all of the various stickers I use for packaging. The combination I used to make this was:
2 Kallax Shelf Units found here + Kallax Two Drawer Insert found here +
Paper Tray found here
For a lot of the products I make, I need a work space that I can stand in front of rather than crowding my desk. I also needed to have as much storage as possible so when I found this Ikea hack, I knew it was just what I needed to make! I loved it so much that I ended up making another one to pack orders and store all of my boxes, envelopes, tapes and labels in! The shipping one sits outside of my office...I'm slowly taking over more of the basement living room!
Kallax Shelf Unit found here + 2 Olov Adjustable Legs found here +
Linnmon Table Top found here (note: this is a larger top than I used for the desk)
If you want to make a work station like mine (for under $160!), you can find the hack here with the step by step instructions!
I also snagged a few of these storage items to use throughout my office to help hide the clutter!
Storage Boxes found here + Set of Round Storage containers found here + Magazine files found here
My next project is to add one of these shelves above my work table in my office as well as over the shipping table! The brackets come as natural wood but I’m going to spray paint them with gold paint!
I've tried to find a balance of decorating my office but not cluttering it with things just because. On my desk, I have a pic from our honeymoon on a snorkeling adventure that I see every time I reach for a pen or turn my lamp on.
On my work table, I have a few decorations mixed into things that I use every day. The most unique decoration is definitely the old letterpress pieces that spell out my name that I got in an antique shop in Greensboro, NC back when Matt and I just started dating!
The teapot art in the frame is something I picked up from a little shop in London last year. When I see this, I'm reminding of the traditional High Tea Matt and I did on this trip and how much fun we had on that trip.
I also love seeing the rainbow of color in my washi tape dispenser and I use this tape so frequently! I've had my eye on this set of tape on Amazon to add to my collection!
I hope you enjoyed this glimpse into my office! I'm looking forward to continuing to decorate the space! If you have any questions about things you see in my office, leave a note in the comments!
Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links meaning I get a small commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links at no cost to you.