Our home office tour – Plus tips on maximizing a small space

Our office has the most personality of any room in our home. I chose to design it that way for a few reasons. The first being that it wasn’t central to our main living area, which gave me some freedom to venture from the colors and styles happening in the rest of our house. The second reason was that I knew it would be a mix of hand me down furniture, so I leaned into an eclectic approach. My goal was to fit a dresser, desk, vanity, cabinet, and set of drawers into this small space without it feeling cluttered. And I think we were able to achieve that! Here are some before and after’s followed by tips for working with a small room that I learned along the way.

I am so glad we were able to see the potential in this room, I feel like it has a new life! Here are a few tips I learned when working in a small space:

1. Closed storage

We needed this room to have a place to store things like books, crafting supplies, and all the odds and ends that a house acquires. Keeping those items tidied away behind solid doors limits visual clutter. This vintage armoire from my mom was originally in an old farmhouse and hides everything we don’t want out – I love the chipped white paint.

2. Try a dark wall color

When picking paint for this room, a dark color seemed like the perfect option. We chose Gray by Benjamin Moore. Rather than making the room seem smaller, it gave the space more dimension. The color works especially well when contrasted by white, which we chose to do on our trim, doors, curtains and furniture.

3. Consider Light

Not every room’s objective needs to be appearing “large and bright”. Some rooms, like this, are great because they are cozy and dark. Natural light is the best way to keep a dark room from feeling dingy. Keep windows clear from blinds and add coziness by lighting a candle, or stringing fairy lights.

4. Don’t be afraid to fill it

With tight spaces, the inclination can be to only use small furniture, and not much of it. In our case, by adding more pieces with substance and function, we were able to make the room feel bigger and more purposeful.

5. Add an area rug

The first day we had the keys to our home we ripped out the old carpets in each of the bedrooms. Underneath were beautiful hardwood floors! All of which needed some major tlc, but we were happy to have them. We gave the wood a good clean and lay down an area rug, which broke up the floor and gave the illusion of more space.

6. Designate “zones”

Each corner of the room acts as it’s own island with a specific purpose. Meaning clothes from the dresser don’t get piled up on the desk, and papers from our cabinet don’t get left on the vanity. My favorite tip for organization is that if everything has a place, you will never have clutter.

7. Choose meaningful items and take advantage of wall space over surface space

Nick hung this shelf above his desk that displays some of my stained glass work, which makes me smile! He also put a couple of beagle bobble heads on his desk for our dog, Peppermint. On the other side of the room I framed a picture of him from our wedding day. A general rule I like to follow is to limit the amount of items on a surface, and use most of your décor on your walls.

Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed our office tour. I’d love to know any tips you may have for designing in a small space!