Home Office Tour
Today’s home office tour is a treat to write, mostly because it means the office is pretty much complete, and subsequently one of my favourite rooms in the whole house!
Since work has allowed me to spend Thursdays and Fridays working from home, we decided one room to tackle would be my office. Adam has the tool room downstairs (at some point to be the snug, but for now it makes a handy indoor shed) and I have what would be the 4th bedroom, but instead we’ve made better use as pretty luxury office. The obligatory before photo looked something along these lines, before Adam and his brother Dan spent a couple of evenings one week transforming it from the room of doom to a tidy calm beautiful place to work.
I guess the easiest way to write this is to talk you through the pieces we’ve chosen bit by bit. However, the stand out feature I must shout about is the ceiling wallpaper, lovingly pasted by my babe of a mother who is a whirlwind when it comes to speed and ease of most DIY tasks. The paper itself was a bargain from B&Q, as it was in clearance for £7 per roll (!) and I love it. Big white, blue and green cabbage roses and foliage, I figured it was a bit too busy for the walls and I’m not a fan of a feature wall, so hey, taking inspiration from the flowery 1950s ceiling decor in the manor house next door to us, we started the hilarious task of wallpapering above our heads!
I will admit, one friend when visiting has said “ohh, you could always paint over the ceiling” when they walked in, but I knew it wouldn’t be to everyone’s taste and I really love seeing it.
The sofa was a freebie from some family friends and is comfy as, but we currently have no room for it downstairs, so it works in here. The mirror above was from IKEA (you wait, a fair amount in here was) and reflects the light without being too “BAM here’s a reflection of your face”.
One of my favourite features are the floating book shelves that I picked up years ago the first time I ever set food in a Tiger store, which have been patiently waiting for a home ever since. The books I have on rotation depending on what’s currently in my list. How cute is the photo of the Bayfield siblings all dressed up for world book day in primary school too!
We’ve had lots of compliments about the plant, basket and stool combo, which is very simply from Lidl, Buyology, and IKEA – I saw a far more expensive version on Pinterest and managed to replicate for around £25 all in.
On my shelves I have my lovely photo holder that was a gift a long time ago, various photos, plants and pretty storage boxes, also from Lidl. I’d been looking out for some white files, and nearly bought them for £4 each from Paperchase, until by chance I came across these in Wilkinsons – a handy little £2 bargain!
You can tell at this point that we very much go for picks that achieve the same look as all the beautiful interiors I lust over, but at much lower prices. Such as the fact the prints around the room are mostly painted by my mumma, she’s such a talented lady! I am a true believer you can achieve the same look for less as long as you’re thrifty (like purchasing the wonderful Aldi dupes of the Jo Malone candles, which smell almost perfectly matched and are a bargain at £3.99 each!), patient (like waiting for a desk we liked the look of like this gorgeous glass Next one we bought for a steal at £40 second hand from Facebook) and the free bureau we got from a man at the tip and then upcycled. If you’re willing to put in the effort to turn something unloved and shabby into something much prettier then it makes all the difference!
With the bureau I sanded down the whole thing with multiple grades, we chalk painted the veneered sections white, added new knobs I bought for less than a tenner from Amazon, and then I used some spare wallpaper to line the insides.
The lamp is a lovely feature that Adam’s granny bought me for Christmas last year and was from Dunelm, the black and white stripy cord is one of my favourite features. We’ve also strung up some of my favourite photos that I’ve had printed through Printiki*. In an age where we rarely get any of our pictures as hard copies, I uploaded these straight from Instagram and they arrived the next day. I’ve got plans to rotate the photos every couple of months so that I’ve got a big collection of my favourite people, and will scrapbook the rest. Plus. the code K4GX85QW will get you free shipping and give me a few free prints too.
The stationary pots were inspired by the herb pots we had in our kitchen in the flat, and all were from IKEA (I said I’d had a pretty big haul there!). I have seen so many people use these for so many different purposes and every time they have such lovely charm.
Most of the pieces in the office are reasonably new, bu I’ve also managed to mix in some older pieces, like the antique chair my grandparents gave us. It’s these little touches that we’ve tried to fill our whole house with, making it as light and airy as possible, but with some antique features in darker wood.
As for the office tour, I think that’s given you all enough of a taster, but if you’ve got any questions about any of the other items I’ve featured, let me know in the comments and I’ll try to remember when and where we bought them!
***I was sent the photographs in exchange for a review, but all photography and opinions are my own***
