Accessories for the office

Since I can't really do anymore hands on DIY I've been shopping instead. Last week I scored some great clearance items at Marshalls for the office. First up, my $18 restoration hardware chair. I couldn't believe how cheap the chair was. I even asked the sales associate if it was the correct item and she confirmed that I'm the lucky winner of this chair. I plan to repaint the wood part black to match the office after Kaley's arrival.

Here's the chair next to my desk. I've finished painting the mirror and hung it up already. It looks a little high in the pictures below but in real life it looks fine. I purposely hung it high so the walls don't seem so empty. 

Second item on my shopping list were curtains. I got some clearance patterned curtains that match my desk for $25/pair. You can see them much better in the above picture with the chair at night. Its so hard to take pictures of it during the daytime. They aren't the best pictures but they will work for now. I removed our formal living room curtain rod and put it in the office instead. I need three identical rods for our formal space but only bought one rod when I scored them on clearance a while back so putting it in the office works out perfect.

This picture makes me want to paint the desk and storage cabinet so bad. I can't wait to finish them off. 

Here's our formal living space with only one curtain rod to refresh your memory. 

Heres the total budget breakdown so far: 

Large entertainment center and paint: $60
Desk: free
Accessories for desk: $63
Storage cabinet: $25
Kmart rug: $40
Three ikea Virserum frames and octopus art: $44
Marshalls chair $18
Curtains $25

Total: Under $285

Here are the before and after:

  

 

 

 

Large DIY artwork

Today I wanted to share how I made a large DIY artwork for under $4. I've been searching online for free PDF artwork that would fit Binh's office. At first I was looking towards a basketball/sports or poker theme but quickly realized that it didn't look as professional as I wanted. Binh works half days from home in the mornings with web conference and two full days at home a week so I needed to give him a professional workspace. I came across this Octopus PDF from the Graphics Fairy and knew it was perfect for the office. The style for the artwork is much more mature and masculine so it might not suit everyone's taste but Binh thought it as cool looking as a first impression so I was sold.

Remember I bought three Virserum frames from Ikea a while back for $40... well I created an image on powerpoint and went to kinkos to get it printed out and cut to size to fit the three frames. Dimensions of my black and white image were 34 inches by 15.5 inches and cost me $3.25 with tax.

Here they are on Monday night after I carefully cut and taped them onto the mats of the frames.

Here they are on the office along the wall of the black sofa. The three frames span at least 60 inches across and 20 inches in height. I just threw some pillows I had to soften up the plain black sofa. Our rug from Kmart also came home. Rug was purchased for $40 shipped to my house. I wanted something plain, simple, and affordable.

I am looking for a large scale pendant/chandelier light to hang over the sofa. We currently have a plain pot light above the sofa and I think it would look really cool if I had a large fixture hanging instead.

Our ottomans aren't that big. The angle made the ottomans look huge. I have plans to reupholster those two ottomans. 

Total budget breakdown so far: 

Large entertainment center and paint: $60

Desk: free 

Accessories for desk: $63

Storage cabinet: $25

Kmart rug: $40

Three ikea Virserum frames and octopus art: $44

Total: Under $240

Future plans include covering the two ottomans with some toddler friendly fabric, repaint storage cabinet near window, repaint Binh's desk, and buy a few more accessories to decorate the room.

Almost forgot the before and after

More storage in the office

Yesterday was exciting. My dad picked up a computer cabinet for me for $25. It really looks like an armoire and it fits the space perfectly. The office use to house the vacuum because putting it in the garage was inconvenient for me. I wanted to keep all my cleaning supplies and vacuum in the office but still be able to hide all the clutter.

This is how the cabinet looks: 

It was made to be a hide away work station. Here's the inside before my dad put his hands on it. I asked him to remove all the shelving and leave the drawer in place so I can hide my cleaning supplies.

This is what it looked like this morning: Fits my vacuum and extra chair perfectly. 

Here's the new room layout in case you wondered.  I moved Binh's office desk over a little so I can add a floor lamp or something along the corner just to even things out a little. 

Here's his desk. After much debate I have agreed to let Binh keep his ugly desk. I"ll give it a face lift but not sure what I plan to do with it yet. I'll have to think really hard to make this desk work. 

Here's the other side of the room: I also decided to remove the black love seat. It just made everything look so crowded. We don't really need all the extra seating. I just put an order in for a rug so it should arrive next week. Update on rug, artwork above sofa, and pending ottoman makeover coming soon. 

The whole office feels so much more organized and clean. Feels like a new room actually. I can't wait to repaint the cabinet and Binh's desk. Its seriously taunting me everyday as I pass by the office. They are double daring me to paint them and go into labor. LOL

Here are the before and afters for comparison:

 

 

Total budget breakdown so far: 

Large entertainment center and paint: $60

Desk: free 

Accessories for desk: $63

Storage cabinet: $25

Total: $150

I'm not sure what color I want to repaint the cabinet yet. I won't be spending anymore money on new paint though. I'll use what I already have so it will most likely be white or one of the existing gray colors in the room. Overall, I think I've saved a lot of money considering I got three new major furniture pieces for the room and so far I've spent under $150. Any single one of those furniture pieces could have easily cost me over $150.

Update on the office

Happy Monday everyone. Its been a very busy weekend for us but I was able to grab some goodies at Burlington Coat Factory to share with you guys. I bought two items for $53 total. I bought a huge mirror and some fake orchids to go on my desk. I've also rearranged some of the furniture in the office to get more space. Since nobody wants to take our old desk, I've decided to turn it into a huge dog house for Binh's 102 dogs. Yes we have a lot of dogs and they are taking over our backyard. Turning the desk into a dog house would be good because they are outdoor dogs and I feel bad that they don't have proper shelter during the cold winter/rainy months. We use to bring them in the office when it gets really cold but now that i'm cleaning up the office they won't be allowed in the house anymore except for really special occasions.  Having a sturdy wood dog house for all four dogs to share would be good.

After rearranging the office this morning, this is how it looks: 

Isn't my desk so pretty? She looks so pretty with the marble floors. I also moved one of the formal living room benches into the office to see if I liked how it would look. The bench is a little wide for the desk. I DIY the two benches in our formal dining room a while ago and have had a lot of people ask where I bought them or how I made them. I might take this opportunity to do a tutorial on a simple DIY bench with pleats and nail head trim.  I also plan to buy black metallic acrylic paint to paint the mirror. I feel like it blends in too much with the walls and desk. Its not bad but just a little too girly for Binh. Black will make anything more manly for him. LOL

Once I paint the mirror black and hang it higher, things will look better and make more sense. See the corner next to the window? I am getting ready to pick up an armoire/cabinet to store my vacuum and random supplies. 

The mirror was $40 and the orchid was $13. Both purchased at Burlington Coat factory. 

Here is the comparison of the before and after at the same angle:

And here's the other side: 

Total budget breakdown so far: 

Large entertainment center and paint: $60

Desk: free 

Accessories for desk: $63

Total: $123

So far it looks like day and night with the <$150 upgrade. 

Hello beautiful desk

Today I wanted to share my last DIY project before Kaley arrives. A couple of days ago I scored two free desks from CL. Since I'm so far along in my pregnancy, I won't be able to complete Binh's desk yet. I've been getting extremely tired and heavy lately so no more DIY for now. I'll do posts about simple decorations/updates on the office but no actual hands on DIY for now.

Anyway, a little side note about getting free stuff from Craigslist. I've had quite a few people ask me how I get stuff from CL for free. I'm no expert on CL but have been pretty lucky. In case you haven't noticed but CL has a section that lists free items. All you have to do is contact the poster for the address or location of whatever you want to pick up. Most of the time, the free items are random junk which include old used and abused nicknacks but occasionally you will come across some good stuff. Usually the good stuff gets picked up and deleted within 30 minutes to an hour so you have to be fast.

Back to my beautiful desk. The last time I posted about my desk, it looked like this: 

I asked my dad to remove the side weave-ish pattern thing because it was damaged. My wonderful dad not only removed that part for me but he even took it upon himself to sand the top of the desk. I was just planning to paint right on top of it but I'll take free labor. First thing I did was remove the two knobs and refinished them with my handy Rustoleum spray paint. Whole process took me literally five minutes from beginning to end.

Then I made sure I primed the whole desk with some Kilz stain blocking primer. I have about a quart of the primer left from another project so it didn't cost me anything to prime. This is how the desk looked this morning after being primed the night before:

Then, I used left over paint from the nursery to finish off this desk. Remember Emily and Kaley's room? I repainted their room a nice light gray/blue color called Gray Wisp from Benjamin Moore and had some left over paint so it got slapped onto this desk. Binh is extremely picky with his colors for the office because anything with colors aside from gray, black, brown, and blue is too feminine for him. He's convinced he will magically turn into a girl if I add any color to "his" room. So here is the desk today after the first coat of paint. I only did one coat of paint and went over to make some minor touchups where it was needed. I really like the color selection for this desk especially in this room because it matches the office really well. I could have just left it white but it would look boring next to the pale cream walls.  If you notice our floors are gray marble tiles, the couch is black, and entertainment center is a medium gray. This desk is a light pale gray so it has a shabby chic look but still looks new and refreshed. I think with the right accessories, it will be a great desk in the room.

I also didn't like how the drawers looked so old and outdated so I lined it with some left over contact paper. I just measured and cut the contact paper to size. Whole process took under five minutes. Now I have a nice clean drawer to put my stuff.

Here's another side view of the desk. I should have filled in the wood chips on the side of the drawer. I didn't realize it would show that much. Its much more obvious in pictures. I think I can live with it for now. This desk isn't perfect but it was free. I can't wait to get rid of the spare desk and start decorating this desk. 

Total cost for this project was free. I got the desk on CL for free and I used left over paint from another project.

I'm looking for two old chairs that I can refinish for the desk. I want to put a chair on each side since this desk/table will be on a large big empty wall. I have to find a way to fill up the empty space. I also have to look for large scale artwork to fill the space above the desk. I'm not sure if I will be up for shopping later since I'm so heavy now. I should be able to grab some goodies this weekend when Binh helps out with Emily but as for now I won't be doing much. I'll be back soon to showcase my new desk with her new accessories. I also need to find a way to protect the top of the desk. Since I'm pregnant and shouldn't be exposed to some of the protective top coats I'll wait til post delivery to finish it off.

And of course a before and after comparison: