Restoration Diary, Home Office
Bedroom Before
Now that our bathroom is completed we have decided to move into the bedroom located directly off the bathroom, a little more en suite…or as “en suite” as you can get in an almost 100 year old house. Our existing bedroom will become a home office.
I’m really excited to get started!
How To, Restoration Diary, Home Office, Wallpaper Removal
Let the restoration begin! Stripping layers of wallpaper from the plaster is more difficult since the wallpaper has been painted several times. The Dummies series has a very helpful article on removing wallpaper.
Here is another approach for removing wallpaper from Yahoo! Answers:
“Go to any store where they sell wallpaper supplies, etc. Home Depot will do, too. Buy the tool to score the wallpaper. It looks like a mini pizza cutter but with spikes on it. Run this up and down and all around the wall. Then take windshield washer fluid, the blue kind (which is unbelievable cheaper than wallpaper removal liquid sold commercially). Put it in a spray bottle and spray the wall in sections. Once a section has been sprayed, slowly peel off the wallpaper.”
I intend to give windshield washer fluid a try!
Look at all those cracks on the ceiling!
Our temporary sleeping quarters. Very cozy!
The walk-in closet.
Home Office Idea Board: 1. George Nelson Bubble Lamp 2. Benjamin Moore Paint 3. CB2 Triumph Lounge Chair 4. Flor Tiles, Grey Pop Tartan 5. West Elm Parsons Desk
One of the things that make bungalows such comfortable homes to live in is that they are well suited to a variety of design styles and tastes. I am taking a bit more of a contemporary approach in the design of our home office. This may be where some of us aesthetically part ways, but please don’t go away! Stick around and see how great a nearly 100 year old room can look with a contemporary color scheme and furnishings.
This home office needs to be functional for two people and it is a place where we will be spending 8+ hours a day. We work in a creative field and want our work space to be fun, colorful, streamlined and, of course, affordable.
I keep coming back to the pictures of the two rooms above. I love how they both have bright pops of color.
Restoration Diary, Home Office, Wallpaper Removal
All the wallpaper is removed from the walls. The tip of using windshield washer fluid worked quite well.
The ceiling is patched and the plasterers have started running a skim coat of plaster on the ceiling.
You can see the original blue gray color of the walls peeking through the wallpaper glue.
Restoration Diary, Home Office
We are making the opening of the closet larger. The closet is long and very narrow. Enlarging the closet opening will make the closet more functional by providing easier access. We are also going to get really modern and install lighting in the closet. Ha!
Built-ins, Restoration Diary, Home Office
The dormer is too small to provide any real, usable space in the room. I decided to utilize the space by having our contractor build a window seat underneath the window.
The window seat has a hinged lid to provide much needed storage space. In our little bungalow every inch counts. The proportions of the window seat were based off of the gentleman caller’s bench in the living room.
Paint, Restoration Diary, Home Office
No matter how long I have been doing this, selecting a paint color never gets any easier. Sigh…I like to see the paint color on the walls to see how it looks in the light of the room and at different times throughout the day.
There is something about the lighting in our house where color goes completely wonky. Grey colors turn green, green colors turn grey, blue colors turn purple…Thank God for sample pots!
No matter how a color looks in the store or in photos, it looks nothing like that in my house. And I’m the kind of person who spends hours at the paint store, taking the samples out side to see them in natural daylight.
I’ve finally narrowed it down to two choices. David and our contractor like one color and I prefer the other. Now I am starting to doubt myself! Which color should we pick?
Paint, Restoration Diary, Home Office
I have decided on the dark gray paint color; Benjamin Moore’s Secret AF-710. I loved the color as soon as I saw the paint sample on the wall. Our contractor really didn’t care for it and it wasn’t David’s first choice, but I’m going with it! And hey, we can always repaint.
The ceiling color is the same hand-mixed soft gray used in our bathroom remodel. We are using the same bright white trim color throughout the upstairs to keep things consistent.
Our contractor is rebuilding a salvaged door for the closet. We enlarged the opening and added another door to provide easier access to our very narrow closet.
Jack, the project supervisor, seems to be making himself right at home on the new window seat.
Paint, Restoration Diary, Home Office
It feels so nice to get this room almost finished! We have a few touch ups here and there…but we are so close. I don’t even want to remember where this all started.
The floor has been refinished. Now we’re just waiting for it to dry before we start moving into the office.
We already owned this George Nelson Bubble Lamp. I purchased it soon after we married to hang in the dining room of our apartment. It’s been sitting in a box in the garage for years. It is nice to be able to repurpose something from our pre-bungalow lives.
Restoration Diary, Animals, Floors, Home Office
We needed an odd sized rug to fit underneath our desk, something durable that could stand up to lots of wear. FLOR carpet tiles fit all of our criteria, plus they come in multiple shades, textures and fun patterns.
FLOR samples
I ordered samples to see which worked best in our office.
It’s a plaid, plaid world
We chose a grey plaid called Pop Tartan.
Jack, project supervisor
Our cat Jack overseeing the carpet installation.
Attaching FLOR dot
The tiles are held together by adhesive stickers called Flor dots. It is as easy as peeling the backing off the Flor dot and attaching it to the back of the tile.
The tile is lined up and dropped into place. Easy!
Tah-dah!
It took us 15-20 minutes to install the carpet. Now all we have to do is finish moving into the office.
Sorry. No data so far.
“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”
{a few of my favorite things}