House Renovation {part 2: the office}

As I begin to type this post my mind is still lingering over on Erika's (my twin sister) post from today... and what better timing for me to link to her (once again). She just finished a beautiful post on my parents and I can't believe I didn't give them any credit in my first renovation post. As you will see from her post that I have inherited the gift of being a hard core renovator from them. They can take any & all things "old" and make them "new"! So be sure to read up on them on her post!

Moving right along to the next room in our house: the office. I'd have to say this room is close to the top of my list of favorite rooms in the house. It's a very small room and "L" shaped. It only has enough room for what it's intended purpose is. Sometimes I think we think we need a "huge" office space with all kinds of tables, etc. (like what you might see in Pottery Barn) but truthfully, if you have some cabinets & closets to hide your junk then the rest of the space is somewhat wasted! Our house was built by a plumbing contractor and I assume he used this space as his home office. We definitely considered it an added bonus! Especially since it has two different work stations; one for Justin and one for me (and all my sewing goodies!). If you look back to the pictures of the den you enter the office through the first of 3 pocket doors off of the den.

Here it is before in all it's brown glory:

We kept all the cabinets, closet doors and all the counter tops (it's amazing what a coat (or 3) of paint can do). I absolutely loved the cornice boards but didn't love the brown & gold fringe tape the bordered them. A great upholsterer had the idea of banding them in the same fabric as my "new" chair, and when he told me he'd charge $35 to do it... how could I say no to that!? The "new" chair came from the same antique mall that all my living room furniture came from. In fact it all came from the same booth... I'm hoping to meet that booth owner one day and thank him for his low prices & his willingness to come DOWN on everything by at least 20%!! The chair pictured below was a whopping $25. Thank you sister for the fabric.

Here are the after pictures:

The walls are Abington Putty by Benjamin Moore (a color that you can't go wrong with... it's in the den too) and the counter tops are a semi-gloss of a color called JAVA that I found at Lowe's. It might be an Eddie Bauer color. It's a chocolate brown with a hint of mossy green in it.

The old school house pendant came from my sister. She found 5 of them at an antique store in Apalachicola... she bought all 5 for $45. I spent a few hours cleaning and rewiring them with the help of my husband... who you can see by the pictures below was delighted to help me! She gave us 3 of the 5 and the other 2 hang over the bar in the kitchen. They were a cinch to rewire and thanks to the Lamp Man (who carries odd & old parts) everything I needed was just 5 minutes away... and the total to rewire them was about $15. The photos below were taken by a 2 year old in our rental house prior to moving in.... she's such a good helper! The pictures are lovely of not only our faces but also our house... which looks as though a small tornado had just swept through! Oh well... here are those school house pendants in the process of becoming "new"!