I’ll be honest here. This is the office in my house, where much of the magic happens at Self-ish Living. But before it was my office, it was a catch-all space that wasn’t working for anyone or anything. When we’d moved into our house, we had a toddler and a new baby on the way, and my husband and I both worked full time outside the home, so this room defaulted to a play room. By the time we overhauled the space, our children were early school age, I was running a part-time small business from home in the cracks of my days and working part time in another office, and my husband had just taken a job that was work-from-home three days a week. We needed an official office, and the play room needed a job to do.
The goal was to convert the play room and office space just off the entry of our open floorplan main floor into a highly functional office space for two people. We were also without a proper mud room, and our family of four had no space to stow bags, backpacks, coats, and sports equipment, so the front and back door areas had become unofficial drop zones for all these items, making the main floor disorganized.
We are a neurodivergent family, and the one characteristic we all share is that we do best in a structured environment where everything has a home and we know what to expect and where to find what we’re looking for, so this was more than an optics problem. It was hindering our ability to function as a family unit and as individuals, all day every day.
The wish list was to create two working desk zones and a simple mud room wall to allow for some family organization without chewing up much of the needed space for the office requirements. The window seat had previously been a dust and toy ledge, so we set out to turn that into usable living space with a specific job to do. Charcoal cabinetry delineates the two separate workstations and gives each user a filing cabinet and drawer/door cabinet for organization, topped with a simple white Corian countertop that’s friendly for writing, computer work, and cleanability. Bold and beautiful metallic geometric wallpaper is anchored with a box shelf, with LED task lighting built into the underside and plenty of display space on top. A custom cushion was designed for the window seat with colorful, textural throw pillows to create a comfortable lounging area, and an existing bookshelf was painted and installed as a built-in storage solution along the mud room wall, with plentiful hooks and a horizontal wainscot detail. Brass hardware and ceiling light add warmth and depth, and play off the metallic wallpaper detail. And, of course, every shelf and window ledge is home to joyful plants to filter the air and add life, color, and texture.
We finished this project just weeks from the Covid shutdown, at which point the office became the exclusive, full-time workspace for both my husband and I for over a year, and the rest of the house became our children’s lair and school. This refreshed, functional space saved our sanity (and, quite possibly, our marriage!). While I hope we never have to go back to that, it was undoubtedly the most sanity- and life-saving home project we’ve ever done…in absolute divine timing. Five years later, there’s still not a thing I would change.
Materials
Cabinetry: Woodharbor via Sander & Sons
Wallpaper: Cole & Son Hicks’ Hexagon in Charcoal & Metallic Gilver on Stone
Fabric: Kravet
Pillows: Loloi
Light Fixture: Hinkley Hampton Semi-Flush
