Tag Archives: office

New Desk Accessories, or Who Doesn’t Need a Giant Clothespin?

While I wait for my “dream office/liiiiiibrary” (say it with a British accent) to take shape, I decided to spruce up my desk space a bit.

From left to right: cool, twisty blown glass by my cousin, owner of Glassometry Studios. The giant clothespin is from Michaels; I spotted it over the weekend, and for $3, couldn’t pass it up! I picked up the postcard at a photography portfolio share at my work a few months ago. And the 2013 calendar is by Pinwheel Print Shop.

Do you have a fresh new desk look for a fresh new year?

Articipation

Just ordered this colorful 8″ x 10″ print titled “The Rain” by Michel Valenton from the Erin Loechner Specialty Shop at The Foundary. (Not a member? Want to be? Send me your email address and I’ll send you an invite!)

I love all of the different colors, but particularly the bright oranges and pinks. I think it will perfectly complement the color palette I have planned for my Library/Office, which is white, magenta, and tangerine! Plus, how could this print not make you smile every time you see it? It’s so bright and cheery! Can’t wait to get it, frame it, then put my entire office design together (ha!). For more on that, check out yesterday’s List-O-Mania post!

List-O-Mania

I don’t know about you, but I love making lists. In the Notes app on my iPhone. Especially when Tom & I are driving to work (we carpool; he drives), running errands, or in those moments when I can’t fall asleep because I have too many thoughts running through my head. During our 13 hour car ride back from Florida, I made a lot of lists. Tom gets carsick if he’s not driving, so he drove the ENTIRE 750 miles home. And I spent those miles reading the September issue of HGTV magazine, and coming up with countless ideas and projects for our house. The best way that I could think of to soothe my racing mind was to create room-by-room lists.

I am sharing these with you in an effort to help 1.) Turn some of these ideas into reality. Decorating is like dieting. If you tell people what your goals are, you’re more likely to follow through and stick to it. Right?? 2.) Have a back-up, just in case I lose my iPhone or accidentally hit delete!

Obviously, there are more rooms in our house than are listed here. But I’m starting with the ones that seem reasonable and realistic.

Family Room:

– Gallery wall above small bookshelf; maybe small wall of photos between TV and stairs (MUST make progress on this soon! I should probably give myself a deadline…)

– Add a basket/something to stash pillows and throws

– Buy a rug for the corner where the piano will go

– Have piano moved from my parent’s house

– Accent table needed between cream leather occasional chairs

– Paint! (this is on the books for early 2013!!)

– Crown molding

– Frame out windows or build cornice boxes

– Eventually… would love a pouf! And a new coffee table and end table

Kitchen:

– Add a tile backsplash

– Paint!! (also early 2013)

– Install under-cabinet lighting

– Crown molding

– Considering a fun, modern wall-paper on the wall underneath our island, that faces our family room

– Eventually… would love custom blown-glass pendant lights.

Master Bedroom:

– Dressing table and chair

– Armchair (and ottoman?)

– New bedding

– Art / photos for walls

– New lamps for our nightstands

– Crown molding?

– Custom closet system

Library/Office:

– Built-in shelving and window seat

– Window seat cushion and pillows

– Frame out window

– Crown molding

– New desk & desk chair

– Hang art

– Feature wall for quilts (my mom is a quilter; she’s made me some cute, sentimental and “inside joke” quilts over the years and I need a way to display them!)

Now, the fun part will be seeing how many of these we can actually accomplish! Is it silly to admit that I’m nervous?!!?

Bright Ideas

By far, the room that I’m most excited to decorate and finish out is my office/study/library. And while I wait for the beautiful built-ins that Tom & I are planning, I keep myself busy searching for the smaller items, like light fixtures, a reading chair, a writing desk, etc.

First up – the light fixture! We had the builder rough-in electric in the ceiling, but wanted to pick out a more unique fixture than the builder offered. At first, the selection process seemed like a no-brainer. We already had a funky Ikea Kryssbo fixture that we never put up in our condo, and I immediately thought it would look super cool in my office.

The good part? It was easy to assemble and install, and it gave the room a fun modern feel. The bad part? It tripped our circuit breaker. Apparently we have the latest up-to-code breaker faults in our circuit breaker box. Which, we learned, are super-sensitive. And the built-in transformer will trip the breakers every. single. time. So, the Ikea fixture came down, and the search was on for a new one.

I have been really drawn to the pendant lights with drum shades lately. And since we already have a nice dining room and kitchen fixture, I thought it would be fun to try a pendant drum in an office. We scoped out Lowe’s, Home Depot, Amazon and Overstock.com without much luck. My criteria for a light/shade included:

– affordable (no more than $200)

– neutral

– provide enough light so I can comfortably read or work without squinting (post-Ikea failure, we decided that fixture wasn’t bright enough, anyway)

I was originally drawn to this patterned fabric shade from Amazon.com:

but wanted something with more pizazz.

I considered a more glamorous option:

but this was too much pizazz.

Then, One day at Lowe’s, we decided to check out the lighting section for kicks – and there it was! Simple yet detailed, contemporary but not too modern. And the best part? Only $99!