Colorful Home Office Design Plans

It’s time for the next room makeover, and this time we are diving into the office!

The office in my house is a decent size, 10×7 to be exact. It was a splurge space-wise (and budget-wise), and I went back and forth on including it. Even though I work from home, I don’t really NEED an office. When most of the work you do is on a laptop, you can totally work from the sofa, dining room table, bed….wherever.

But things like printers and paper, staplers, files, the tangle of extra cords, and batteries all need a home, and an office area (no matter how small) gives all that stuff a place. Bonus points if it makes working from home easier/more comfortable.

Now that Beau and I have decided to make my house our house, that nice little “spoil myself” bonus room is a necessity. He works from home too, but like for real… no laptop work from the sofa for him.

So while most things are on hold until we can sell his house and start on the addition, the office needs to be finished. Like yesterday.

The office is a cool room. It has the tallest ceiling in the house, unique clearstory windows, and is absolutely brimming with natural light. It also has a window that looks out to the atrium area, where you can see the breeze block wall and even into the kitchen. Since the day the house was framed, I knew this was going to be my favorite room.

So here is the embarrassing part. I’ve lived in my house for about a year and a half, and have done nothing with the office besides fill it full of crap and give the cat his own room.

It holds all those things I mentioned…but it’s obviously not organized, pretty, or functional. Ain’t nobody doing business in here. Well, except for the cat…the cat is definitely doing his business in here.

That’s about to end though, because plans are in motion.

Here is where we are headed –

It all starts with COLOR. This is not going to be a neutral room. This is a room that people are going to have strong feelings about, one way or another. I’m stupid excited about it.

The most prominent element is the wallpaper.

It’s yellow, it’s busy, and it’s going on all four walls, all the way to the ceiling. I’m not messing around here. If this room doesn’t make you dizzy with pattern, then I will be disappointed.

The wallpaper is peel-and-stick, and I actually bought it about a year ago. Then a few months later I attempted putting it up by myself, and then quickly realized it is NOT a one-person job. A few days ago, Beau and I finished wallpapering the whole room. It was…umm….an adventure. The beginning was rough, but by the last wall we had a solid system.

Next, cabinets.

There isn’t any furniture going into this room; it’s all built in. So the “desk” is really just kitchen cabinets and a countertop.

As you saw in the design, I want the cabinets to be blue.

I’ve been trying to get my hands on the IKEA Sektion cabinets in turquoise, but they are never available in my store OR for shipping, so I gave up and ordered some plain white ones. I’m not giving up on the blue though, so it looks like I’m going to have to learn how to paint laminate.

Two cabinets are going on the ground to become supports for the countertop/desktop. Then another row of cabinets is going on the wall, on top of that built-in wooden box you saw. The goal is for the uppers to look like this photo –

I used that photo for kitchen inspiration, and it still won’t get out of my head.

The desktop is going to be a 10-foot-long piece of butcher block. Butcher block is the most budget-friendly option, plus I firmly believe every room needs wooden elements. Also, I just counted, and I’ve used butcher block in NINE of my own personal spaces over the years. You just can’t beat it.

The wallpaper, cabinets, and wooden desktop are the bulk of the design, other than that it will just be accessories like desk chairs, curtains, a rug, and a boatload of plants. The lighting in there is so good I might even try my hand at a fiddle leaf fig tree again, even though I’ve already killed like 14 of them. When you’ve murdered that many plants, what’s one more?