Rental Decor on a Budget – Office Renovation “After”

And now (drumroll please) the big reveal of our newly painted, rearranged office.  Keep in mind two things: we are still renting, so this isn’t nearly as customized as we would like.  We’re trying to save our pennies for when we get our very own cottage that we can make our very own.  This is just to tide us over until the penny jar gets filled up.  Secondly- we’re still working on it.  Almost every day I switch something around in the room that I think could look better.  It’s a work in progress.  But hey…isn’t all decor?

Enough with the blabbing- on to the pictures. 

First- a remind of what the room looked like “before” our crazy project…













And now…here is the view when you first walk into the office.  This is our thrift store filing cabinet find.  We snagged it for $25 one Saturday and have had no problem filling it up since!  Our plans for this include changing out the handles and possibly restaining it to match Andrew’s desk.  The top of the cabinet is home to our quick filing folders, our receipt accordion file, our charging box, and occasionally some other miscellaneous things.

      













Andrew’s desk sits beside the files.  You can see the stain job really made it look more spiffy!  His shelves hold all of our office supplies very neatly, and the top generally stays uncluttered.  The corner holds some of our favorite pictures. (We use black frames in the office, brown in the living room, and white in the bedroom.)












Beside Andrew’s desk, our Bed, Bath, and Beyond Ottoman find ($15) is a great hiding place for owner’s manuals and extra cords.  It keeps everything nicely out of sight, but easily accessible.  We are in love with ottomans and are hoping to get a lot more over the years to use in many different parts of the house.  Our printer fits just right on the ottoman and it keeps it kind of down and out of the way- just the way we like it!  In the opposite corner, we have our lovely reading chair (read: camp chair covered with a blanket).  It’s cheap and works for us, plus it’s easy to fold up and move out of the way if we need to do that.  One of these days we’ll get a real comfy chair.  Behind that is my bookshelf.  Pretty basic- it holds books, my box of memorabilia from our dating days, one of my card boxes, a fan, and a couple picture frames.













Now on to my desk…  I love the way a couple coats of paint and some new knobs spice up an old desk.  It was a hand-me-down from our music pastor and I think it’s the perfect size and does exactly what I need it to.  Above my desk is my French bulletin board that I picked up at Big Lots before my freshman year of college for about $3.  I love the way everything stays up there without having to use pins. 
  












And, finally, here is the non-descript entryway into the room. Along that same wall is a tiny closet that we use to store clothes, music, and other random things.  I hated having everything just sitting there, open to the rest of the office (which meant I actually had to keep the closet clean too!), so I found some fabric on clearance for $2/yard, grabbed a tension rod for $3, and using some iron-on fabric tape, made a great no-sew curtain panel.  We love it, and my favorite part is how well the color blends in with our other blue accessories throughout the room.















So, that’s it- our cute little office.  We love spending more time in there now, since it’s actually all neat and pretty.  It’s still a work in progress, but at least it’s headed in the right direction.  Thanks for coming along on this tour of our first home decor project!

Rental Decor on a Budget – Office Renovation “In Progress”

Don’t you just love pictures of the “during” process of home renovating??  I’m mean seriously- who wants to see pictures of half-painted walls and paint cans??  But, I still have to post these to prove to y’all that we didn’t just snap our fingers and have an office suddenly appear…


The weapons of mass production:  Kilz Primer (a-mazing- covered the walls in just one coat, as advertised) and a package of brushes from Walmart (while cheap, still did the job just fine)




We were too lazy (not to mention we had no room in the rest of our house) to move some of the furniture out of the room, so we just sorta shoved it into the middle and hoped for the best.  It came out rather unscathed actually.
    



Awww…..don’t I have a sweet husband??





This is the “almost done” picture.  In case you hadn’t noticed, we didn’t use any painter’s tape.  This was mostly because the trim in our house is so thin that the painter’s tape wouldn’t have done much to help.  We don’t recommend this 99% of the time.

And because I am new at this whole "take pictures of everything for the blog" idea, I forgot my camera when we painted/stained our desks.  Here is a picture of my desk and chair drying after the second coat of paint.  We were able to take both of our desks out of the house to paint/stain them to keep us from gagging on way too many fumes- because we're crazy enough already without paint fumes!

Tomorrow.....the finished product (for now...).

Rental Decor on a Budget – Office Renovation “Before”

Being the computer, tech-y nerds we are, the first room we have tackled as part of our make-our-rental-feel-homey-without-breaking-the-bank is our home office.  Between Andrew’s freelancing and my blogging, about 3/4 of our at-home hours are spent in the office, and the come-with-the-trailer wallpaper was starting to make me go crazy.  It was an awful tan with brown flecks in it which I affectionately referred to as “hair.”

Today, the beautiful “Before” pictures:


Andrew’s side of the room was cluttered with books, his viola case, picture frames that needed to be put up, and other miscellaneous things lying around. He had never gotten around to staining his desk, which was subjecting it to more wear and tear.







The back wall left a lot to be desired—space- and function-wise.  Plus, the folded-up camp chair we used for kicking back and relaxing in there had no room to be left out.






My side of the office was sparse and gave me no room to get anything done.  The desk (though this picture doesn’t show it) was in a bad need of a new paint job, and the chair was wobbling and scuffed. (Notice the paint chip ideas on the board on my desk- always planning the next project!)

So...tomorrow you will see the amazing and astounding “In Progress” pictures, followed by the awe-inspiring “After” one. So maybe they aren’t that terrific, but we’re pretty proud of our thrifty, crafty selves!  Stay tuned...