Our Farmhouse Home Office Renovation: Before & After

It’s been awhile since I’ve shared an updated room.  After sharing weeks of our farmhouse renovation, I thought it was time to share another room that’s just about done.  My home office is done!  I needed a place to work in our home since day one, but it’s not one that made it to the top of the list when you’re busy making sure you have the kitchen, bathroom and bedrooms in place.

Priorities.

We also hit a bit of a hiccup when moving in.  My husband owns his grandpa’s executive desk and it did not fit up the stairs which is where I wanted our home office.  Well, the stairway was wide enough but the doorways just feet before the stairway were not.  WHY!?!?  The questions I ask myself with an old home.  The thought behind putting three doorways before a stairway and having the doorways be multiple inches smaller than the stairway make no sense to my 2018 mind.  I guess I need an 1860 mind to figure that one out.

Anyways, after a year of wondering what to do with the large desk and having it sit in our barn, my husband thought about cutting off the legs of the desk so it would fit.  I wasn’t crazy about altering an antique.  We also thought about buying a new desk.  And a new desk we did shop for.  But nothing was what I was looking for and large executive desks are expense.  So, my husband decided to give it one more try with the help of my dad and my brother.  And they somehow puzzle pieced it up the stairs much to our amazement.  Mere centimeters and we made it.  Still can’t believe it.

The “new” desk in the space jumpstarted me in getting the home office ready so that I could finally have a place to work everyday that didn’t include the couch or our kitchen table.  I wanted something functional but with bits of the past sprinkled in.  I also needed to fit the large desk, gigantic armoire (that doesn’t fit through any doorway or window to move it) as well as a guest bed.

I think I achieved a great look.  And we’ve come a long way.

This was the office space when we bought the home.

And this is a flashback of my wallpaper removal nightmare.  I kept quite a few scraps of wallpaper to frame one day.  They’re still stored in the attic.  I don’t know if I want to look at them ever again!?  But there they will stay until those days of wallpaper removal WEEKS are a memory.  I haven’t fully blocked them out yet.  I can still smell the wallpaper in my head.

Back to today.

The highlight was creating this wipe off calendar with a frame, magnet weeks and galvanized metal.  My husband thought that the day he brought the desk up – poof!  the home office would be done.  In his defense, I did have a year to think about it…… but I had to figure out how to make the things I wanted for the space so it took a few weeks.  I’ll be sharing how I made the galvanized metal magnet frame soon.  (Here is the tutorial!)

I also wanted a space that I could change quite a bit.  So every single frame has a clip to it and no glass.  Sure, you can change out a picture with glass, but a clipboard is faster.

In the space is also a little dish of my grandma’s that was part of the hutch I just painted.  I moved it up to the home office to use as a coaster.  Here it houses my La Croix afternoon addiction.

The bed is still a bit of a work in progress – as in I need to find pillow cases that don’t cost crazy amounts of money.  Have you ever shopped for cute euro pillow cases.   My word.  My money.  Not going there.  I bought the Euro pillows on clearance for $3.  I’ll probably end up making my own.  But all that to say, I do love the quilt on the bed.  It’s my favorite.  Hand stitched.  Amazing.

Within the room the armoire still sits.   It’s one of my favorite pieces of furniture in our home.

I mean…. ❤️.

The view from the home office is pretty awesome, too. I have two large windows which bring in lots of light.  Of course it will be prettier when the grass is green and the peonies have bloomed – and it hasn’t rained for days but you get the idea.

And a little organization tip.  I use this to house all my office “stuff”.  It allows me to keep my desk organized and I can see everything I need.  It’s a simple shoe holder you can find here.

All in all, the room is bright, it has a mix of the old and new and it inspires me to work.  That’s the important part.  😉

And less you think I have all my rooms looking this pretty right now – I currently have two ovens in my kitchen and neither of them are hooked up to work.  Looooooong story that I am hoping will have a resolution in the next week and then I hope to share the saga.  In the meantime I will be in my home office.

What do you think?  Anything I should add to the space?