Feminine Home Office Design Updates

Welcome to my feminine home office; it has undergone a huge makeover during the last few months and I’m thrilled to share all the updates with you today.

If you like following along with all the behind the scene work, make sure to follow along on my Instagram stories. I’m always sharing what I’m working on and sneak peeks of each project.

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This room is right off our kitchen, and the builder meant it to be used as the dining room. When we first moved into our home nearly five years ago, we used it as it was intended. Here’s how this space used to look:

We ended up needing more space for our dining room because we bought a buffet and a large hutch as well as an 8′ dining table. Those items along with our eight vintage dining chairs moved into our current dining room right next door to this space. We put the pictured table and chair set in storage.

Let’s take it even further back! Below is what the space looked like when we first bought the house. Holy moly. I forget sometimes how much work we have done to our home. We got rid of the carpet and installed hardwood floors. We removed the doors and the light fixture as well as painted the entire room two-toned. Whew! What a transformation.

OK, enough reminiscing. Back to my feminine home office.

This bookcase has been the talk of my Facebook page and Instagram stories as of late. I completely transformed this piece with some paint and the help of my sweet dad. I searched and searched for the perfect bookcase for what felt like forever, and the ones I wanted were out of my price range. I fell in love with this one from Pottery barn, but, again, the price was too steep. I knew I could make something that looked similar without the hefty price tag.

Here’s the Pottery barn bookcase that provided me with inspiration:

One day I was scrolling through Craigslist and I found the “perfect” bookcase! Obviously it wasn’t perfect, but I knew it could be with a little work. The sellers were asking $100, but I got them down to $80. That’s a pretty good deal for this size bookcase. I envisioned the bottom half with beautiful doors, just like the Pottery Barn one.

Here’s what it looked like when we bought it:

I knew I wanted to paint it white to create that light and bright feminine home office that I wanted.

Here’s a photo of the painting progress:

That is what one coat of paint look like. I always say that it’s important to let each coat of paint dry before applying the next coat. Otherwise, you’ll get a sloppy paint job. Progress is not always pretty, and it’s going to look worse before it looks better!

While I was painting the body of the bookcase, my dad was busy building me custom doors for the lower half. I am truly lucky to have a dad as talented as him. Before he retired, he owned a cabinetry business, so this is what he did for a living. Once the bookcase dried, I did some preliminary decorating. Then, once the doors were finished, my dad installed them for me.

All I had to do was remove each door (but leave the hinge) and paint, paint, paint! It only took me a couple nights to get them done. I completed the painting task while my toddler slept at night. 🙂

I really think my hard work on this bookcase paid off. It looks beautiful but it’s also quite functional.

The lower half of the cabinet holds all our equipment, like our printer, sewing machine, photography equipment and more. It hides our cords, binders, office supplies and basically anything that could be considered unsightly.

I decided to move two of our antique dining chairs into my home office, as you can see below. We have a total of eight chairs and our dining table looks quite perfect with three on either side. I usually have the remaining two on either side of our hutch but thought they would be a nice addition to the office.

I get tons of questions on these antique chair makeovers. We bought them as a set of eight and they were originally blue fabric with brown wood. They have come a long way! If you like the look of my antique chairs, these chairs and these chairs are quite similar!

Unlike the antique chairs, my gray office chair was not a DIY project. We bought it new, and I LOVE it.

I did a little light decorating on the shelves. I didn’t want to go overboard because the holidays are almost upon us, so I know I’ll be switching out the decor soon.

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There are still a few updates I’ll be making to my office including installing hardware on the bookcase doors and adding a lighting fixture. Make sure to follow along on my Instagram stories and subscribe to my email list so you can be the first to know about all the updates!