REDESIGNING MY OFFICE NOOK FOR OUR NEW REALITY

UNPOPULAR OPINION: Some joy can be found in this weird season of life.

When non-essential businesses closed, we were forced to work from home; forced isn’t the right word, I actually skipped out of the office. Now before you jump on your soapbox and think to yourselves how callous I am for my excitement or flippancy, I’d like to tell you that my full-time job is as a concert promoter, and guess what’s not happening right now.. concerts. For a while, we pushed through the uncertainly, all the while my productivity and quality of life improved as I continued to work from home. The day my blue blocker glasses came in was the day I was temporarily laid off; a few weeks later our summer festival was canceled and our spring concert rescheduled twice. In the few weeks that I’ve been away from my inbox and the stress of working for a company that was struggling financially, I started this blog, organized my basement, built and painted corn hole boards for a friend’s birthday, and generally gotten to enjoy some time for myself.

As much joy as I have found in the past few weeks from doing all the things and being a stay-at-home dog mom, I’ve gotten some good news; the payroll protection loan was approved and we’ll be closing our office to cut back on monthly expenses. That means come next week I’ll be sitting back at my card table desk as a proudly employed in the music industry.

With a stimulus check on the way and a new (old) job working from home full-time, now’s as good a time as any to finally carve out an intentional space in my house to work. My current workspace is pretty shabby; located in a dead-end corner opposite the top of my stairs, is my very luxe card table, a fancy plastic chair (if that’s even a thing), and garbage strewed around me because I’ve got no storage. Before I was laid off I was searching daily for console tables and desks on Facebook Marketplace that would fit the bill but nothing was turning up, then I started researching DIY options and got 90% of the materials to make a table myself. Ultimately, I decided that I should just buy the desk I want since the cost and time associated with a DIY project just wasn’t worth it for a finished product (or space) that wasn’t what I wanted.

Now please direct your eyes to the first image in this post, this beautiful breakfast nook was designed by my absolute favorite, Amber Lewis, of Amber Interiors. I don’t know if Pinterest just keeps putting her stuff in front of me or if I just keep finding her spaces but I’ve “pinned” her hundreds of times before ever really knowing who she was. BTW rattan & wicker is having a MOMENT, and I’m here for it. Amber recently installed a wicker banquette in her new (old) home and I couldn’t help but swoon. Cut to me finding the PERFECT rattan desk at Urban Outfitters and then stumbling on this inspiration photo when searching for “rattan” on Pinterest and suddenly I had a direction!

Some of the things that I can pull from this image that I wanted to bring into my office space. Overall texture, that comes in the form of wicker/rattan, leather, stone, brass, warm wood tones & greenery. The great part about this, I can take almost every element I spot from this breakfast nook and convert it into my own design for an office nook!

Marisol Rattan Desk - Urban Outfitters - $399
As the “centerpiece” of my new office nook, I don’t think this price is unreasonable, not to mention it has two drawers to hide the things that are currently floating around the surface of my card table. The great thing about Urban Outfitters (and Anthropologie for that matter) is that they are a part of the AfterPay network, this means that you can pay for an item in four installments every other week!

Milford Dining Chair - CB2 - $499
More than I wanted to pay for a chair, but since I found it I haven’t seen anything I love as much as this. The cushioned seat (my tush is going to spend 40 hours in this thing), the woven back, the curved arms… sigh [insert heart eyes emoji]. Unfortunately, AfterPay isn’t an option, so I’m going out of pocket on this one but you can’t say no to true love.

Table Lamp - West Elm - $179
West Elm has so many great table lamps and all of them are in this price range if you want the USB feature as I do. That said, I’d love to pay less so I’m keeping my eye out for other tall USB or wireless charging options. Fewer cords = less clutter!

Faux Olive Tree - Pottery Barn - $399
Basket - World Market - $60
The faux tree and basket is something I already own, the tree was a Christmas gift from J for our first Christmas in the house and I picked up a similar basket from HomeSense (a TJX company) for about $30. I’m all for baskets, my house is full of them, but I would love to actually find or make a faux stone planter; to bring in a similar texture of the floors in my inspiration photo!

Artwork - Amber Interiors - $1,950
I’m going to start off by saying there is no f***ing way I’m paying nearly $2k for a poster. Don’t get me wrong, I’m obsessed with the tree canopy artwork from Shoppe Amber Interiors, she uses images from this series in quite a few of her interior design projects. I love that these pieces almost act as a window to the outside, but it’s just not going to happen. What is going to happen is I am going to do is go for a walk someday soon and try to take my own photo of a tree and have it printed at Staples for like $30 max, I’ll keep my eye out for frame sales at Michael’s and call it done.

Ceiling Light - Hinkley Lighting - $199
I’ve always struggled to commit to ceiling lights, it’s the jewelry of a room and I honestly feel like this one is a bit of a miss, but as always I’ll leave this bit until the very end. I included the black version of this light but I think the brass would be delightful. Is there such a thing as too much brass?

Please comment below and let me know how you’re fairing in our new reality. Do you have a designated workspace or do you move around your house?