Classic Office Decor and Inspiration

Amy and I wear quite a few hats, as most of you know.  We’re both wives and moms, we write this blog, and we work with decorating and event planning clients (in our free time–haha!).

I thought I’d share a couple of design boards I made for a “virtual” decorating client recently.  Virtual clients are ones who don’t live locally, but we still work together to decorate a room using the wonders of technology.

We start with a design board, like the one above, that incorporates existing and new pieces of furniture.  Once I know that we’re heading in the right direction for the client’s taste, I send source lists and work on a furniture placement plan for the space.

Suzanne and her family are building their dream house and moving to a new state; her husband is retiring from the Army and she finally gets the “forever house” that all of us military spouses look forward to.  She contacted me to help come up with a plan for her office; this space is going to be just for her and it’s the first room you see when you come into their home so it needs to shine.  She already had the desk armoire and the lamps with the trellis lampshades, and she loves the color yellow.

Inspiration or design boards are hugely helpful because they really let you visualize how all the elements in a room will look together.  In my own home, that means I return things to the store less frequently because they work the first time!

If you take a closer look, you can see the small tweaks from one board to the next.  Suzanne was pretty happy with the original board, but wanted to see if we could add more yellow–so I changed the grey bergére chair to a yellow one.

She really preferred a trellis rug to the leopard, though, so we wound up going back to the original chair since it was just too busy otherwise.  The striped chair was a lot more expensive, too, so that was a win.

We started work on the furniture placement plan, and there are quite a few other (smaller) items that I’ve got her shopping for, as well.  It think it’s going to look amazing when it’s finished, and hopefully she’ll let me share photographs so you all can see it, too.

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Sources:

Grey Bergére Chair

Yellow Striped Chair (in butter/white canopy stripe)

Leopard Rug (5′ x 8′)

Grey Trellis Rug (6′ x 9′)

Brass Desk Lamp

Yellow Trellis Lamp

Chandelier

Pillow Covers:  Chiang Mai Dragon, Yellow Trellis, Red Leopard/Cheetah

Foyer/Sofa Table

Armoire

Paint Colors:  Benjamin Moore Hawthorne Yellow and Elmira White

Botanical Prints:  Buy here, or save a ton and buy this book and use gold frames from Dollar Tree (see this post for more details)

Gold Framed Chalkboard:  Easy to DIY using a vintage frame and gold and chalkboard spray paint, but can be bought here

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I hope you enjoyed a glimpse into how we approach the design process.  By the way, Amy isn’t accepting any new design clients right now.  I am, but I do have a 2-4 week waiting list (email for details at 11magnolialane@gmail.com).  Let me know if you have any questions, and thanks for stopping by!

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