Office Makeover Part 1: Before

Yesterday we celebrated Saint Patricks Day.  I can honestly say that I don't have a drop of Irish blood in me, but since moving to the States, this day has been a fun one to celebrate.  However, since having kids the day has taken on a whole new meaning.  Gone are the days of downing Guiness in the local Irish pub while dancing the gig.  We now instead get visits from little green creatures that create havoc in our normally calm and tidy home (well some of the time).  Those Irish Leprechauns are pesky little beepers!  Look what they did to my living room.

Ok, who am I kidding?  Unfortunately can't blame this mess on Leprechauns.  It's the result of finally deciding to makeover our home office.  Funny how such a small room can have such a huge impact on the rest of the house.

Below are pictures of our lovely office before.  Please excuse the mess.  I would love to be able to tell you that it's not usually this disorganized and chaotic, but truth be told, it's looked like this for a long time.  I think I tidy it once a year when it's time to do the taxes.  Hopefully, that will change once the new space is finished.

Notice the lovely faux orange walls, the mismatched furniture and the appalling filing system.

A lot of the furniture is now scattered throughout the rest of the house, including the kitchen.  Arghh!



It's seriously about time this project was finished.  Unfortunately there was a major hiccup.  Remember the paint that I won for winning the Room for Color Contest on Apartment Therapy?  Well, if you recall, I had to choose the paint colours rather quickly.  And silly me, I just went and got a bunch of paint swatches from Home Depot and held them up to the wall.  How could I make a mistake?  Grey is grey right?  Wrong!  What I thought was grey is actually a lovely baby blue, great if you're decorating a nursery, not so great if you're trying to emulate a cool, modern work space.  So, after two coats of the stuff, and many days of waiting and praying that the colour would miraculously morph in to the colour I wanted (it didn't, except under a certain light, which is that 10 minutes a day between sunset and night), I decided that I needed to repaint.  The lovely boys in the Home Depot paint department took my tin of paint and added some black and brown to it to get it to be more grey.  Two new coats later, voila, lilac!  Aaghh! 

Meanwhile, the boys are having much more success with their remodelling/building projects.

Come back soon for the reveal of my first ever design board.  You design blog junkies will know what that is.

Sofa Makeover Madness.

On my daily prowl of design blogs, I just spotted this over at Alice Lane.  I'm thinking that something similar to the bottom of the sofa will add a nice touch.

coastalliving.com

I told you I was obsessed with mixing patterns.  Well maybe this is a bit too much.  But it looks fun doesn't it?

Sofa Makeover, Final Reveal.

Three days and $65 later;  huge improvement.  Remember what the old sofa looked like?

I thought that the back looked pretty plain, so I decided to add some buttons and tufting like this Anthropologie sofa.

Making the buttons was pretty simple.

Sewing them on and tufting was OK.

That's the back

Keeping the buttons on was another matter!

The tufting kept breaking the buttons; really annoying.

But I persevered.  The sewing became easier and neater, and the cursing became less.  And voila, a new sofa.  It's a great jumping off point for the rest of the room.  I haven't decided on what cushions, if any, to  get for it.  I'm debating the DwellStudio chinoiserie pillow.

But I think I have too many birds around as it is.  We'll see.

Here's some more pictures of the sofa, styled with some pillows.

Some detailed pictures of the back and arms.

And finally, a picture of it in situ (in front of the fire).

I am feeling pretty trigger happy with the staple gun these days.  DI (Deseret Industries - goodwill) here I come!