My Cozy Home Office That I Purchased from Amazon

Last updated: November 4, 2023

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Ok, now that I’m finally in my Alabama forever home, I’ve been working on making some spaces my own. I feel like I need to give a disclaimer here that this is my fourth house that I’ve owned in 5 years. Given that, your girl is exhausted. Previously, I thought our Somerville house was my forever home, so I poured all the love and energy within my soul into making that place a home. It brought so much happiness to my heart. It still pains me to this day that I sold it. If I could go back in time, I would have just let it sit empty until I could come back to it. But… life happens and at the end of the day it’s just boards, bricks and shingles. My point; even though I’m happy with this gorgeous forever home:

• I need to let my passion recharge. I just finished flipping this Indiana house (we are in the midst of closing with a buyer!) and my design and creativity juice is just running a little low.
• This house doesn’t need a lot of work. It’s the first house I bought that didn’t need massive work to be livable or a complete makeover because it was so dated. This home is up to date and gorgeous. It actually suffered a major fire, so when we bought it, most of the house had been rebuilt and modernized like new. An ugly, outdated house gives me major motivation and this house is far from that.
• So much change. I can roll with the punches as good as anyone else but it’s been a lot the past 18 months. Kris has had three unexpected surgeries, I took 10 weeks of FMLA to support him. I’m in an new position at work. We’ve sold two houses, bought two houses, and moved twice to two different states. It’s a lot for anyone to manage, but I am managing with the help of my Lord and Savior, our amazing family, and our loving church. I am so crazy blessed. I literally have zero complaints. I just need to take a breather from all the craziness and just be still for a moment.
• Lack of routine. For the past 18 months it’s been madness… there was no gym, no cooking (I didn’t even have a kitchen for six months)… just no organization in life. Thankfully, things are simmering down and I started the gym last month and actually started counting calories and have been meal preparing some breakfast meals… I’ve got my vitamin routine down, my skincare routine is back on track, and I’m getting back into how I thrive… with a consistent and regular schedule.

So while my passion for those gorgeous before and after home photos is alive and well, I’m just going a bit slower these days and not so Tasmanian Devil like I have been in the past. 🌪️

That said, let’s talk about my home office flip. 😂 Hear me out. I’ve been working from home since 2020. I had no idea how much this would positively contribute to my mental health. How much less stress I would have. How happy it would make me. It was life changing. I rarely bold anything in my blog posts, so that tells you how serious I am. Now, when I work, I work. I’m talking 12 hour days… sometimes til 2AM. My point is, I’m in my office a lot. I spend a lot of time in there. It’s gotta be a happy place that makes me smile. In my Somerville home, I used a spare bedroom as an office. In my Indiana home, I created an office nook. This house (we’ll call it the Trinity home) has a dedicated office space that’s smaller than a bedroom, but bigger than a nook. It’s juuuussst right! I was so impressed with this design because I didn’t have to waste one of our bedrooms to make it an office! I get to have an office and keep all of our bedrooms. 😃 It’s an 8×8 room right off the kitchen and I truly love the placement within the house. But… it was far from my style. It had the original built in desk from 2007 when the house was built. They had repainted the walls and put down a new floor, but I just couldn’t work in there everyday with that kitchen countertop as my desk. So I did what I do and ripped it all out, had someone come in and patch the floor and wall, then made it my own. Let’s share some visuals to help tell this story, shall we?

So here is the before before photo. What I mean by that is this was the space before the fire. That fan… 😕

And here’s the actual before photo of what it looked like when we bought it. I mean, it’s better… at least they got rid of the fan, but they left the kitchen countertop desk that made me cringe.

Now let me say… I made a terrible assumption here that when I ripped this thing out, I would just need to patch and paint the wall and go along my merry way with buying a new desk. No. There was no floor underneath that desk. Just the subfloor. This thing was literally built as part of the original house. I am kicking myself for not getting a photo before the contractor patched the floor, but believe me… there was no floor there. I actually got lucky and found a whole box of extra hardwood planks that were left in the garage so it worked out that I didn’t have to find the floor and buy it. Regardless, we got the floor and wall patched as you can see here.

Next up was painting and a new desk (🤩). In my Somerville home, I learned quickly that a desktop protector is a must as I had the top of my desk scratched in no time. I don’t just sit there delicately typing all day. I’m in meetings, eating my breakfast, lunch and sometimes even my dinner in there. I’m slicing up my tomato while I dial into a meeting. I’m making my energy drink. I’ve got 50 water bottle lids all over the desktop. I’m scribbling on post-it notes, charging my watch and phone… there’s a lot happening. The desk got scratched up. So like I said, lesson learned, so this new desk got a desk protector on it the second we got it built (a huge thanks to Kris who is incredibly speedy at putting furniture together due to all the practice he’s had over the past 16 years). By the way, it’s a fantastic desk protector. Its leather. Buy it. While you’re at it, if you need a new desk, get this one. It’s perfect. Adjustable to fit your space just right and comes in different colors. I absolutely adore it. I even left reviews on Amazon for both of these items (which I’ve been doing lately as I’m trying to get into the Vine Program.. I’ll let you know how that goes).

Now for the fun part. DECOR (aka, making it gorgeous). I decided I needed a wallpaper accent wall. I put that up with the help of my mother-in-law. Cutting around that window was no joke. Speaking of the window, I had shutters installed. They are so expensive but worth every penny. Next up, I knew I needed storage so I got a bookcase and an upper for the right wall above the desk. Last, I threw some boho decor on the walls because that’s just where my soul has been lately, placed a dog couch in front of the window because they need to be comfy while keeping me company all day, and added a video conferencing light to make my face glow for meetings. Viola! I have an office that puts a smile on my face as I walk in wearing my yoga pants and fuzzy socks with tea in hand each morning.

Don’t those shutters look amazing? That wallpaper is my most favorite out of all the wallpaper I’ve worked with thus far. Bonus: I used the leftover to line my desk drawers! 😍

Here’s the before and after!

I later swapped out my chair because I just needed something comfy. Enjoy these photos of my office that’s a little bit extra, but did you expect anything else from your highness? 👸🏻

Here’s a photo after I switched out my chair. It’s extra wide… I can sit cross legged in it. But let’s talk about that video conference light… look at it! It makes my face glow like the SUN. ☀️

Here’s a selfie of me sitting at my desk with that light shining on me… see what I mean? I should have taken a photo without the light on, dang it. I might add that later so you can truly see the difference this light makes!

I gotta say though… my favorite thing in the office is this dog sofa. Literally. They love it and use it every day. When work is…. work, I just look over at them and all is well in the world. So much better than two dog beds crammed together, don’t you think?

And there you have it. This is where I spend a majority of my days. It’s been a minute since I posted home design content… I’ve missed it and I hope you enjoyed it.

Do you have a home office? I’d love to hear your favorite part of where you work!