Work in Progress - The Loft office

I’d thought I’d share a project of my own which I’ve been working on during lockdown - my office. I started running my business from this room as it’s the converted loft at the top of the house (so it’s nice and quiet). The only problem was that it hadn’t been decorated since we moved in and was a very boring shade of beige. And I was working on an old computer trolley type thing which was too small and was falling apart. It was definitely time for a change - have a look for yourself:

After around a year or so of working in this room, I started to have problems with my neck because the desk was too low, and the keyboard was on one of those pull out tray things beneath the desk, which was even lower. So, I decided to design a new built in desk, and also some extra storage as I was rapidly running out of space. Another issue was that all my fabric and wallpaper books were stacked up on the floor, and it was a huge effort to pull any out to source anything for a design.

I decided to have the desk and storage made from plywood, as I like the slightly industrial way it looks, and also the contrast against a brightly painted wall. That part was the easy decision to make - I used my computer software to make a model of the room and design the built in parts within it. Here’s the line drawing of the desk and shelving:

Next, I had to choose a colour scheme for the room. As I’m an interior designer, this should have been the easy part, right? Wrong. I know that I like a wide range of colours and am aware of all the different styles it could have been, making the choice harder. When I’m designing for a client, I work from their ideas, personality and style to come up with something which works for them. But when I’m the client, I can be soooo picky. Because I felt the world was my oyster, it was much harder to choose. I also know that I wanted to ‘colour block’ the room in some way, but as a loft room has so many angles and it could be divided up in lots of ways, and  I needed to choose just one. I actually went through five colour schemes before I settled on one! Here are a couple of the rejected ones:

I finally settled on the perfect colour scheme for me by getting my paint charts out and just picking out anything which ‘spoke to me’ and putting them together. It sounds odd, but sometimes you have to go with what your gut tells you. I then off course checked that the colours worked together and bought sample pots to make sure, like a grown up. Here’s the final design in the two visuals I made:

I was then of course too busy running my business and designing for my lovely clients to do anything about getting the desk built or to decorate the room, so nothing happened for over a year. The arrival of lockdown presented the ideal opportunity to get started, as I wasn’t going to see clients for a while and could turn my office upside down without too many consequences. So I got started. Here’s a few pics of the decorating in progress:

The straight lines which I’d decided to paint along the ceiling and down the walls were one of the things I had to work out as I went along. I’ve done a lot of decorating over the years and have steady hand, so usually paint any edges freehand. I knew this wouldn’t cut it with the sharp lies that this design called for, so I used Frog tape for the first time ever. I was very impressed - it gave me beautifully crisp edges - even down the middle of the door.

The next stage was to get the desk and shelving in. I sent the drawings to my very talented carpenter, who then constructed most of it at his home so that we could maintain social distancing. He then came to fit everything whilst I and the rest of the family stayed out of the way. Luckily, my measurements were accurate, but unfortunately the walls aren’t true, so he did have to make a few adjustments along the way (I think he’d say more than a few!) Here’s the desk and shelving going in:

I really loved the orange colour which I’d chosen to paint around the window reveals, and wanted to add some more contrasting colours. I also wanted a little more pattern, as the walls were very plain. I added both colour and pattern with the rug and some cushions. Here’s a sample of the rug I chose, with me testing to see if I like it against the wall colour:

One final piece of the puzzle was changing the look of the chest of drawers I use to hold all my samples. This was a boring piece of orangey pine, and definitely needed a refresh. I chose to paint it in a purpley red to complement all the other pink/orange shades (it’s Annie Sloan Burgundy if you want to know). I also wanted to change the handles to something more industrial and practical. The ones I found are perfect because they have space for labels, so I can label the items in my drawers and stay organised.

I’ll be posting the final shots of the finished room on my website, but for now, here are a couple of sneak peeks of the final result: