Before & After Simple Room Refresh with lots of DIY Decorating Ideas!
Today I’m excited to share with you the reveal of our home office refresh! I’ve been sharing the room redecorating process the last few weeks on my Instagram stories and am so glad to say that the room is now completed! Today as a part of the reveal, I’ve got lots of fun DIY Decorating ideas to share with you!
This post is sponsored by Schlage.
We have lived in our home for almost 10 years. It’s the longest we’ve ever stayed in one place and we can’t seem to decide if we want to stay here indefinitely or move after the kids all go to college. To be honest, I think I want to move, then I think of packing up and moving all of our stuff, get overwhelmed and think I’ll just stay here forever *wink*.
While we have lived in our home we have taken on a number of DIY projects, some larger than others. We’ve finished our basement, re landscaped our back yard, completed a mini remodel of our kitchen and painted nearly every room in the house.
BEFORE
In the 10 years since we’ve been here, there has been one room that has never really “worked” for us. We have a home office space that is right off our entry way. It has French doors and can be seen as soon as you walk in our house.
BEFORE
When we first moved into our home the main use for room was a general home office. It held the family computer, printer, filing cabinets etc…
Sometime during the last 5 years the kids started to prefer doing their homework at the kitchen table, and I took over an extra bedroom to use as an office (as my blog grew, so did the space I needed to work in). Eventually we found that the office was rarely used, and soon turned into a catch all room for all of the paperwork, bills and books that we didn’t know what else to do with. A couple of years ago, the computer in that room also died and we didn’t know if we wanted to replace it or not. We have a family laptop that stays in our kitchen/great room area, we have found it is easier to help the kids with their homework at the kitchen table than in the office.
BEFORE
The home office was in my top 3 projects that I needed to tackle in 2017. It’s right at the front of the house, so everyone sees it when they come over, and had become a bit eyesore.
Within the past year we’ve installed skylights in my sewing room and had to redo most of the basement due to a sewage backup in the Spring. I had held off on redoing the office because I thought I needed a “grand plan” — something like built in bookcases, or ship lap or French picture molding, and honestly I didn’t know if I had the energy to tackle a GIANT DIY project after all of the stuff we fixed last year.
Last month I finally realized that the room didn’t need a BIG renovation, it just needed a refresh. Fresh paint, new accessories and a bit of space planning.
When my husband and I were in college we took a summer oil painting class. That summer our professor took an extended vacation and arranged for a few local artists to sub for her. One of those teachers was James Christensen. I was familiar with his work, but didn’t realize at the time how well known he was. Mr. Christensen sat down next to me, talked to me, and watched me while I painted for about 3 class sessions. He was so friendly and unassuming and I couldn’t figure out why he kept sitting next to me while I was working. This was the first art class I had EVER taken in my life (I always considered myself more a math/science type) and looking back I’m pretty sure that it was because he could tell that I needed extra help. After that summer my husband and I became instant fans of his work, and several years later started collecting his artwork.
All of that art that we had of his was scattered around the house. I thought it would be nice to put it all in one spot and display it “gallery style” and the office seemed like the perfect spot.
In order to best show off the artwork we chose to paint the walls a crisp white with an accent of deep navy on the ceiling to give the room a bit of pop.
As I started planning the refresh, I knew I wanted the room to have a modern global feel. Since the artwork going on the wall was so traditional, I thought that we needed a few modern elements in the room to balance it out and keep it from looking too stuffy or dated.
During the planning process, we also decided move the desk out and our piano and guitars into that room. They were previously in the family room, which always caused problems when one person would want to play the piano or guitar and someone else was watching tv.
The rest of the changes in the room were minor, but things that I think made a big impact. We moved the rug to the kitchen and bought a new one at a discount store. We also took down the fan (we never used it) and installed a chandelier.
One of my favorite updates was hardware swap out on the French doors. The previous hardware on the doors was just a standard closet lever, ever since we moved in I always thought that the doors more substantial hardware.
Over the summer, not long after the basement flooded the front door handle broke. (Why does everything always break at the same time???) We replaced it with a Schlage door handle we purchased at Lowes. It was an easy installation and we were able to do all by ourselves. Since the front door was so easy to change, we knew that swapping the handles on the French doors would be a total breeze — and it was.
We chose to switch the handles to the accent lever with Camelot trim from Schlage in a matte black finish. I love the plate behind the handles, not only is the same plate as the front door handle that we replaced last summer, it also adds an extra detail to the door.
I’m so happy with the change it was a pretty small and simple one but I think made a big impact.
There were nickel handles on the door previously, but the rest of the house (stair rails, lighting) has black iron accents so it made sense to switch the color (plus I think the black pops more on the white doors). The rest of the doors in our home have nickel hardware but honestly there are no other doors anywhere near this room. So we felt pretty confident in switching the color. I’m one that believes everything in your house does not need to match EXACTLY.
To switch the handles, we simply took off our existing hardware and drilled pilot holes for the new hardware.
The new hardware came with a handy template that showed us exactly where to drill the pilot holes.
After we drilled the pilot holes we took the handle portion off of the hardware using the pin that came with the kit, and used a screw driver to attach the plate to the door.
After the plate was installed all we had to do was click the handle back on. We finished the whole process in about 20 minutes.
One thing to pay attention to when you’re changing out hardware like this is to note whether your doors open in or out, and whether you want the handle to face right or left. We ended up with 2 right handed levers and 2 left handed levers (one set for each side of the door).
If you’re thinking of completing a room refresh yourself soon, I have good news for you!
From 2/15/17 to 3/13/17 you can get 20% off your Schlage interior hardware purchase from Lowes, either online or in the store!
Schlage believes that style lives in the details because the details bring everything together in a home. Schlage offers new possibilities with our door hardware, deadbolts and electronic locks that showcase your personal style.
The whole room refresh took a little more than a weekend and I absolutely LOVE how it came out. We didn’t need some “giant” renovation after all. I love that we added so many things that are very “us” in the room from the artwork (some of the art on the wall was painted by us) to my husbands old guitar and many of the items that we’ve collected from our travels. I mostly love that it’s DONE and we were able to handle the whole project ourselves.
A few more photos:
This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of SCHLAGE. The opinions and text are all mine.
