Office 2.0

The saga is over- the home office has been Hubby-fied.  About a month ago I claimed our guest room/den as my new office and forfeited the existing home office to the Hubs, his video games, and his music composing.  As part of his birthday present, I bought him a second monitor to facilitate his music editing and restyled the room accordingly. I'll admit, I'm really pleased with the space, and excited to share with you, but I'm less than thrilled about the photo quality.  Daylight is elusive for the blogger with a 9to5 job and I'm far too impatient to wait for the weekend to photo it properly first.  A proper photo-shoot will follow soon, but until then, please don't hold it against me.

Prior to this make-over, the room had been in a bit of disarray.

office mess before

4 chairs in this tiny space was 1 too many.  Once my parents closed on their house, we sent the big beige chair to go live with them.

Office mess 2

The saga of this room was really about the computer monitors.  A comedy of errors, but less funny.  The new monitor was intended to be a surprise installed before he got home on his b-day, however the delivery man had different plans.  He ruined my surprise by delivering it a mere 5 minutes before Hubby left for work.  FIVE MINUTES!!!  Aaaanyway, the first monitor that I ordered to match Hubby's current discontinued monitor wasn't wall mountable.  I didn't even know they made monitors that you couldn't mount these days.  What is this, the ice age??  So came the second monitor.  The same model, but wall mountable.  Too bad the screen quality looked like poo and had half the contrast ratio of its discontinued counterpart.  So I gave up on trying to match the existing and ordered a 3rd of Hubby's choice.  With new articulating wall mounts, I reworked the gallery wall to be more Hubby-oriented.  He doesn't need pics of my sister and me at her wedding in his room.  (Sorry sis!)

gallery 2.0

Gallery wall 2.0 includes all of Hubby's Sox tickets from the past few years, an antique painting he bought in France, a watercolor by his grandmother, a ceramic carving he got in Cancun this summer, and still a few wedding pics (can't let him forget all about me- with his new set-up, he could spend days in there).

gallery music magic

gallery 2.0 closeup

With my books and items moved to my new office, the built-in shelves got a make-over too.

office shelf style via a year of strategic serendipity

Styling included Transformers, video games, TTRPG books, and a rock n roll piggy bank among other things...  and, yes, an adult male inhabits this space.  (If you aren't familiar with the term TTRPG, it's probably better you not ask.)  What make's this all somehow work, though, is it's juxtaposition next to some more 'refined', 'adult' pieces: an antique chair and another of Hubby's France art finds.

office seating via year of strategic serendipity

office shelves via a year of strategic serendipity

office vignette via a year of strategic serendipity

office hobes

Why, yes, those ARE Calvin and Hobbes books hanging out with the art book.  I knew Hubby would appreciate what the association implied (think about it).

The room isn't 100% complete just yet.  Over the winter I'll be refinishing a craigslist desk that's been hanging out in our basement (check it out here) to replace the aging overscaled IKEA desk.

Hubby seems to be really happy that he has a room decorated for him, and I'm happy that I have a husband who lets me 'style' his Transformers.  Optimus Prime's never looked so good, if you ask me.

Color Blocking

While I'm trying to muster up the energy to dig my trusty, less than real, Christmas tree out of the basement abyss, I decided to brighten up another area in my house.  The top of the stairway now has a lively pop of seudo-DIY color blocking art. stair tile art

I call it seudo-DIY, since all I really did was cut it down to size and put it in an IKEA frame, but this piece is a great example that anything can be art.  This awesome pop of personality started its life as one of the most personality-less items that you see it most commercial interiors.  It's an acoustic ceiling tile.  Didn't see that one coming did you?  This particular tile was meant to be a color palette for all the available tile colors.

I couldn't very well let it get thrown away when it would look so good hanging on my wall!

color tile art

This color blocked art is a great transition from the neutral stairway into Hubby's now restyled office.

tile art office peak

Yup, I said restyled.  I finally put the finishing touches on his new dual monitor gallery wall and did some geektastic styling on the bookshelves.  You're not a real designer unless you can style a shelf with Transformers and D&D books.  Just sayin.  Check back tomorrow to see the big reveal!