Young House Love

Home Decorating & DIY Tutorials

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Finishing The Office Makeover

Our office continues to creep towards the finish line (tortoise style) with the addition of an overhead light…

Chairs Light Detail

… and new desk chairs.

Chairs President Business

You might recognize the light because it’s none other than the one we used to have hanging in our kitchen (loosely meeting both the “old” and “borrowed” criteria from this post’s title). We loved the light itself, but mentioned a few times in the comments that after living with it for a little while, we weren’t sure we loved it as much as we initially thought we would in the kitchen. So we figured we’d try it in the office.

Chairs Light Horizontal

The second it was up, we were sold. It feels polished and traditional to us, so it’s a nice mix with the clean-lined furnishings and colorful art (the more modern counterparts of the room) and the paned bay window and thick crown molding (the other more traditional elements that are already present). Functionally speaking, it’s nice and bright (it’s a two-bulb fixture) and we’re both soaking up the luxury of finally having a ceiling fixture to flick on when we enter the room. We’ve even talked about going to a glass place (or a lighting place) and having them cut a quatrefoil-shaped diffuser to fit it, so we’ll keep you posted if we get around to that.

Of course now that we stole that light from the kitchen we just have a bare bulb dangling in there, but we’re glad to have found our big quatrefoil shade a more permanent home.

Chairs Light In Kitchen

Now for the chairs. Don’t you remember them from our kitchen too?

Just kidding, they’re new. And blue.

Chairs John Detail

It all started when a reader named Sabrina tipped me off to a big sale going on at PB Teen and mentioned they had some pretty nice stuff. Lately I’ve noticed a bunch of designers using stuff from PB Teen in adult spaces. In other words, don’t let the name scare you. Oh and check out PB Kids too (they have some gorgeous lights right now). In fact, Real Simple had an awesome living room a few months back and the thing I loved most and swore was probably super expensive ended up being like $150 at PB Teen.

But I digress. These chairs caught my eye the second I headed over to the site – especially because of the awesome button tufting and curved arms (traditional) and those sleek legs with wheels (the more modern counterpart). Although the light gray and teal one were completely charming, the navy one screamed my name the loudest (less worry about stains, and a nice dark/rich color to ground our light and airy office) so I showed John and held my breath. John is somewhat of a chair diva. He wanted our new office chairs to be adjustable (check), have arms (check), be on wheels (check), and not have a ton of cumbersome levers and handles under them (we looked at a lot of prior chair options looked like an oversized eight-armed spider lived under them). These actually checked all of his chair diva boxes. BIIIIIG SIGH. He was in.

Office Chairs

Actually, I loved them enough to pull the trigger, but it wasn’t until I called a local Pottery Barn store to check if we could return them there (instead of having to pay to ship them back if we didn’t like them) that Practical John was completely with me on the whole “add to cart” step. They still weren’t cheap, but we certainly appreciated that they were marked down by $50 each and their friends & family sale got us 20% off on top of that (we ended up saving $118 per chair).

We did that obligatory worrying thing until they arrived on our doorstep. Would they be comfy? Would they tilt at a weird angle? Would they feel scratchy? Would they come with a nicely labeled empty box in the packaging? Turns out they did.

Chairs 2 Empty Box

The good news is that they’re also comfy, they adjust so we both can have them at the height we like, the wheels glide like butter, and the sloped arms are really nice. You’re probably wondering “how does it feel to breastfeed in this desk chair?” Well, I can tell you in all sincerity that it’s quite cozy indeed.

The fabric feels almost identical to what’s on the armchair in Teddy’s room, which has lived through both food-related abuse (remember it was in the corner of our last house’s kitchen by the fireplace for a few years?) and baby-related projectiles, so we have high hopes for their durability.

Chairs Sherrys Chair

Our only slight surprise was that they looked a little less blue in real life to us (they’re definitely navy, but the website photo looked almost cobalt, so we expected a little more intensity I think). But the art, the plant, and the items on the bookshelf in the office are pretty colorful, so we figure some handsome tufted navy chairs are nice classic “foundation” pieces to ground the room and balance out all the light/modern/happy stuff. Since they’re not these super bright focal points we figure that frees us up to have fun with curtains or a rug in a bolder color or pattern if we want. So although they look a little whoa-those-are-dark-chairs-in-a-light-room now, I think they’ll make more sense when we bring in those other items.

Chairs Main After Shot

Maybe something like this? Depends on what we find. But this is a good example of how something that might look out of place in an unfinished room (the cream color of the light or the deep tone of the chairs) can sort of “gel” more as the room fills in (the tone of the light is also in the West Elm rug, and the dark curtain rod and bold curtains seem to balance out the deep color of the chairs).

Future Office Idea

So our few remaining items on the office list are those aforementioned window treatments and a rug along with getting a frame for Clara’s monster and possibly adding that diffuser to the light along with a desk lamp or two and then we should be finished in here.

It’s pretty exciting to be creeping towards a mostly-completed space since the only other rooms that are worthy of that description might be Teddy’s room and Clara’s room along with our sunroom-turned-veranda. The funny thing is that I’d bet the laundry room will be a pretty finished-looking space in a few more weeks, which is hilarious since it came out of nowhere while some other rooms we’ve been slowly upgrading for over a year still feel SO FAR from being done. Houses like to keep you on your toes like that I think.

Comments

  1. Flagless says

    I don’t think you’ll have any issues with the chairs scratching the floors, because you’re not large & heavy people – from my experience, it depends on your weight. Like, I used to help out with translations in a lawyers’ office when I was a student, and their floors were always terrible, even though they had these expensive leather & metal swivel chairs because they were both big and heavy guys who’d put a lot of pressure on the floor. Meanwhile, I’ve had the same cheap kids’ swivel chair (the base is plastic!) for about a decade now, through four different flats, and even though it’s been heavily used (I’m in academia, so I write a lot), the floors never suffered, because I’m a teeny tiny woman.

    Reply

  2. lynnanne says

    Awesome chairs! I think the right drapery are like lipstick and eyeliner. It always enhances your features! :)

    Reply

  4. Sara says

    Do you know if these chairs are able to roll over carpet? I’d love to get some for our office/guest bedroom but it’s carpeted so not sure they would work…. Office is looking beautiful! Thank you!

    Reply

  5. karen says

    Curious about 2 things:
    Why don’t you sit facing the window, Sherry, rather than with your back to it? What a view! Or maybe you don’t want the view to distract you from your work?

    Is John growing a beard, or just chillin’ about shavin’?

    Really enjoy the blog!

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Thanks Karen! John has been beard-y since the winter and seems to really like it. Long live the beard! As for my desk, I tried sitting a bunch of ways and felt the best with this one (if I face the bay I have my back to the office doorway and it feels like people are sneaking up on me or something). This way I can still see out the two windows to my left :)

      xo
      s

  6. Diane says

    From a designers standpoint I would not worry about the navy blue chairs looking too heavy. You are right, they ground the
    lightness of the room and work well with other saturated colors like your orange (or red?) flower pot. A simple addition of a hint of navy should solve the problem for you so consider adding a navy taped edge to the light fixture or find a rug with both your teal/turquoise and navy in it. It certainly looks like a fun place to work! Nicely done.

    Reply

  8. SeaEyes says

    We had the same light switch-a-roo during a kitchen reno last year. We ended up putting up a small capiz chandelier very like the one you have posted in you “We’re Digging” list to cover the bare bulb while we shopped for a different shade. To our surprise it looked awesome, gave a little dose of playfulness to a pretty utilitarian room and has been one of the upgrades that the most people comment on. And as an added bonus, there is a sweet tinkle of shells whenever we open the oven. We love it and our kitchens are quite similar.

    Reply

  9. Caroline says

    I love how airy this room is, yet there is so much personality! Such a great job pulling everything together. Where is the quatrefoil ceiling lamp from?

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      It was from a local shop called The Decorating Outlet (we bought the shade and converted it to a pendant with a light kit), but I think Shades of Light sells it as a ready-made pendant.

      xo
      s

  10. Emily says

    Love those chairs! They look so comfortable and classy. Navy’s one of my favorite colors for chairs. Honestly I didn’t think the dark chairs looked out of place at all in that room in the first pic, but when I see the dark curtains with them it really does improve it.

    You guys are doing such an awesome job with this room!!

    Reply

  12. LillaN says

    I wouldn’t go with curtains in this room. Rather, think about painting the back wall with the bay window navy blue. It could tie in your chairs and center the room. There really isn’t anything to ground the room (hope that makes sense) and a deeper color is just what this room needs – contrast and depth.

    Reply

  13. Lesley says

    Like those chairs a lot. Need to check out PB Teen for things, those are my speed.

    I am sort of surprised you didn’t hang one of the lights from your collection in your office. Since this is where the magic happens and if you have people in for meetings it would really surround them in your brand.

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      We’d love to use one of ours in the dining room and a few more in the bathroom upstairs as well as possibly in the bunkroom so we don’t want to go overboard ;)

      xo
      s

  15. Christina says

    Love the office, but where do you hide the printer? My husband and I just redid the sitting room in our master and made it a small office, but I have no clue how to hide our printer.

    Reply

  16. Jane says

    Do you trim your fiddle leaf figs at all? I purchased the same ones at Home Depot, they are the same height but are very full at the bottom. I wonder if I start to trim the bottom at all if I will just kill them? Thanks!

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Oh yes, I removed a few of those leaves at the bottom (makes it so much easier to water and check the soil!) but I did it really gently and over time (a few leaves one week, gave it a break, a few more the next week, etc). Hope it helps!

      xo
      s

  17. Ashley says

    This room is really coming together – well done!
    Where did you get the white cabinet with the shelves?

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Those are from Ikea! They come with add-on drawers (you can add as many as you want by buying them separately) and we love them! They’re soft-close!

      xo
      s

  19. Lauren L says

    Ok you guys are getting more hilarious as time goes by. John is a chair diva? The empty box joke and breastfeeding remark? I just can’t. Both of you are getting sassier in your writing and I’m loving it. Just wanted to give some props. Keep the snark coming! <3

    Reply

  20. Annalea says

    I love the office mock-up with the green curtains! :)

    If the lighting shop diffuser proves to be prohibitively expensive, there’s always frosted lexan/plexiglass/acrylic from Home Depot. You might need to get a hot knife or something to cut it to that kind of shape (or a special jigsaw blade?), but it would be cool to see a DIY post about that.

    Reply

  21. Danielle says

    I’m trying to focus on the content of your posts, but really all I can think about is that you’re both so functional with two children, one of which is a newborn. Our (only) baby is 11 months old now and I just started vacuuming on a regular basis again for the first time since he was born. You’re both amazing.

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Trust me Danielle, sometimes I have those days where I haven’t done a single thing except keep the kiddos reasonably happy and semi-clean. Seriously, the sink is full of dishes and a giant list of book to-dos are on the agenda and there are posts to write and photos to upload and somehow it’s the end of the day and I haven’t gotten anything done!

      xo
      s

  22. Jessica says

    You may have covered I. Previous post, but I just started following. Can you tell m about the desks and shelves? Source maybe? I’m looking to incorporate something simple into my living room for an office corner.

    Reply

  23. maureen says

    A few weeks ago I treated myself to a carved, wooden block-style monogram from PBTeen…….it’s beautiful. I’ve seen LOTS of stuff on websites like that (Pottery Barn Kids is also a favorite) but this is the first time I ordered from them. Definitely I would do it again.

    BTW, the monogram is hanging in the center of our dining room wall, and will eventually be surrounded by photos of our grandchildren — i arrived last year, another on the way. With luck, we’ll have to move it to a bigger wall someday.

    Reply

  25. Sarah says

    Love the office space! So inviting and homey and at the same time, professional! Where are the desks and bookshelf from?

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Thanks Sarah! The floating desk was a Craigslist find (free curbside pickup!) and the desk against the wall was from West Elm a bunch of years back. The shelves on either side of that are from Ikea!

      xo
      s

  26. ombia says

    It is really brave to buy an office chair without trying it out first. I was for hours in a shop with office chairs and they were labeled/certificated for how many hours of sitting was each of them. Some were really cool, but labeled as max. 3 hours chair. Usually they were not good looking or were good looking but not super comfy like described here:
    http://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/ergonomics/office/chair.html

    My biggest must have was the backrest supporting natural curvature of my spine, and providing adequate lumbar support. I like the style of your office chair, but I would not be able to sit there for hours.

    One day (woman can dream right?) I will have white eames office chair.
    If it is for a short sitting I would love vitra dal. Or something like this
    http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/83/ea/de/83eadef6562ad6b69148669fedd835e1.jpg

    http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/58/30/cc/5830cca05e5c5362eff265f3c414ccdf.jpg

    Reply

  28. Kasey says

    That chair looks almost purple in your pics! Is it closer to purple than navy??? I’m in love with it. I’ve been looking for a home office chair forever. I looked on the site and think I will go with the gray though if this is more blue than purple.

    Reply

  29. Meredith M. says

    Hi guys! I just wanted to check back and see how you’re liking your desk chair now that you’ve had it a few weeks. I love it and was considering getting one for my own office and would love to know if you’re happy with it still. Thanks!!

    Reply

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