Latest Project…Decorating My Friend Jenni’s Office!

I know a lot of you are stuck indoors because of the ice, snow, and cold weather that seems to be affecting most of the country.  During one of the coldest days of the year yesterday, I was decorating my friend Jenni’s new office with Spring colors and flowers!  It was quite a shock and change of scenery for me when I finally left her house!

Jenni and her husband built a beautiful house 2 years ago and during the build she miraculously got pregnant with their 3 child!  Her first two were fertility babies, boy-girl twins that I had the pleasure of teaching in Pre-K4!!!  So, due to this amazing, unexpected pregnancy, her tiny “office” had to be quickly converted to a nursery.  Well now that her baby has graduated to a “big boy” bed, they were able to play musical rooms and she now has her office back!!!  So when she asked me to decorate her new office I was SO excited for her because I knew she had been waiting for this day since she found out she was pregnant!  Jenni is by far THE MOST organized person I know!  She has her entire life carefully organized into multiple binders, follows a budget like you wouldn’t believe, and keeps one heck of a calendar!!!  Each month she makes a “vision board” and places pictures, lists, and inspirational sayings on it to help her meet her goals.  She’s been in pharmaceutical sales for 14 years and has recently become a very successful product advocate for Melaleuca.com!  She is the reason our family has switched to a healthier, organic, non toxin lifestyle!  ( I will talk more about this later  in an upcoming post)

When I first asked her what she had in mind in terms of the design of her office she sent me this picture for inspiration that she found on Pinterest….

Originally pinned from centsationalgirl.comÂ

She liked this office because it was “light, bright, and happy” and that’s what she wanted people to say when they walked into her office!

Her father in law had recently given her a wooden desk and a shelf so she wanted to do something with those instead of spending money on new furniture.  So, I suggested we paint them with Old White by Annie Sloan Chalk Paint and the back wall of the shelves with French Linen by Annie Sloan Chalk Paint.  As part of my suggestion, I assumed I would be doing the painting and even offered several times.  Her exact words were “Painting is awful! I would never make you do that!  I will do it!”  and insisted on doing it herself.  So, her and her daughter painted the desk and shelf together.  They painted the desk with Old White by Annie Sloan Chalk Paint as well as the white part of the shelf.  They used a color called “Anonymous” by Behr for the back wall of the shelf.  In person, this color looks like Graphite and French Linen by ASCP mixed together.   While they were painting, I picked out fabric for the curtains, a chair, and some accessories.  Here are some pictures of her office all put together with details and sources.  Keep in mind that this room was hard to photograph because I had to shoot directly into the natural light so some of the images may be darker than others…

She added some crown molding to the top of the shelf using this tutorial she also found on Pinterest.

The curtains are are made from Hobby Lobby fabric, on sale of course.

The baskets on the bottom shelf are from TJMAXX and the frames above these baskets are from random places in her house.  All of the other shelves I will describe in great detail below. You can see her inspiration board hanging on the wall in between the desk and the shelf.  She found it at Homegoods and painted the frame to match the grey on the back wall of the shelf.

This is a close up of her beautiful coral chair from World Market.  This might be my favorite part of the whole office!

Here is a close up of the painted desk in ASCP , Old White  They did a great job painting!  Painting with Old White is hard to get total coverage.  (no wonder she complained so much!)

Jenni is big into inspirational sayings so I put this framed picture of a quote she printed out herself on the left side of her desk so she can look at it when she’s up late at night working from home!  She painted this frame with a combination of Old White by ASCP and “Anonymous” by Behr. I grouped it with this vase of tulips because I think every room in your house should have flowers!!!  I hijacked this candle stick from her china cabinet. I love how it catches the light coming through the window and mimics the lamp on the opposite side of the desk.

On the right side of the desk sits this acrylic lamp (also given to her by her in laws) and a metallic silver/blue shade I found at Target  She told me she wanted some kind of tray or box sitting on her desk that she could put her “to do” pile in so I found this robins egg colored organizer from Homegoods.

The white birdcage is from TJMAXX, the coral and turquoise Love sign is from Hobby Lobby, and the fret work basket is from Homegoods.

The silver books on the left and right are from Goodwill and I painted them with French Linen by ASCP and Silver Liquid Leaf from Hobby Lobby. I found the coral tray in the center at Target on clearance Both of the glass vases were already in different rooms of Jenni’s house so I stole them for this shelf! The flowers in the vase on the right are from Gordon’s Home but I have also seen them at Michael’s. (lilly of the valley is the name of the flower) The adorable canvas print of her son was done through Sams Club! My mother in law actually told me about the canvas prints from Sam’s.  She had an entire gallery wall made of some larger canvas prints for her office that looked really good and were inexpensive so I decided to check them out for this project!  These 4×6 prints I had made for Jenni were $10 each!!!!!  I didn’t even have to pay shipping because they were shipped directly to my local Sam’s store!  The ordering process was very quick and easy too!

The silver ball is from Stein Mart (on top of the book I found at Goodwill and painted just like on the shelf and picture above) The owl candle and gold bell are from TJMAXX  This LOVE sign is also from Hobby Lobby (“Love” is Jenni and her daughter’s favorite word/saying so she wanted to make sure and incorporate it into her office)

Here are more canvas prints from Sam’s Club.  The decorative bin in the middle is from Homegoods.