Bargain Bin: Home Office

When our house was on the market, it was staged by Meredith Baer (Why she staged our house? No clue. Check out her portfolio and you too will wonder why). Typically when a house is staged, it is staged to give buyers an idea of what to do with a space that was otherwise empty. Dramatic and colorful designs are out of the question. In sticking to a neutral palette, the buyer is more likely to make the purchase. The second I walked into what is now our house, I knew it was staged. And though the execution was nicely presented, it was soooo far from my stile that I couldn’t wait to make the investment and make this house our home.

Take a look at what our office used to look like.

I fell in love with the amount of character this house had to offer and saw tons of potential, but instantly knew that the knotty pine wood paneling needed to go pronto.

I also knew we didn’t have a huge budget to work with and since I live for a good bargain, I either used things from our previous place or found pieces at a very reasonable price. Here’s what I came up with.

The knotty pine was sanded and painted white and fireplace was painted in a high-gloss black. The magazine rack was found outside of our old apartment. I believe it was meant to hold VHS movies, but I re-purposed it to display our magazines. Those two gold candlestick looking things (blogged about here) were bought at the thrift store for $15. The fake Picasso was bought at an estate sale for $5, and the color wheel was made by me during my color theory class. Every color was mixed by me, using the three primary colors. My little Hello sign is from Etsy. The little owl holding some wallpaper that needs to be installed is from Home Goods, purchased for like 20 bucks. The black light fixture was bought at a local lighting place for about $50. I used wrapping paper from Target to cover the back of the ugly desk we bought at Office Depot before I knew any better. The image on the left wall is a picture a Kirby Puckett, gifted to my husband from his BFF.

The acrylic chair was recently purchased from IKEA, and the green lamp was bought at Home Goods for about 30 dollars. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the color and shape.

I scored the vintage television from The Pasadena Rose Bowl Flea Market. So cute! The white bookcase is the ever so popular Expedit from IKEA. I bought mine at some shady store in my hood for 50 bucks and it was already assembled – DOUBLE SCORE!

The zebra print rug is from Cost Plus. The red floor lamp, white side table and accent pillow are all from Target. The side chair was originally used for Evan’s work office, but worked it into our home office instead. The fake Andy Warhol was also found outside of our old apartment. I had it re-framed since it had a few cracks in the original glass.

It’s pretty different than what it was previously, and am super happy with the amount of color I brought in.  A big thanks to Evan who let me have carte blanche with the decor.

Cheers,

Irene Lovett