Designing an Elegant, Moody Home Office & Library – Weeks 1 & 2 of the One Room Challenge

I cannot believe The One Room Challenge is already underway. I feel like I blinked, and it’s October! Even though I’m a starting a little late, I am jumping in with both feet.

My project for the next 7-ish weeks is to transform my home office/library. This small room is just off our front door. In the chaos called the year 2020, it served as my husband’s home office first. Now that he is back at work, I’m using the space. It is connected to all of the rooms in our open living, kitchen, dining, foyer, and office. Basically, our house is one large room with bedrooms and bathrooms separated.

Step 1: The Room’s Function/Purpose

The primary purpose of this room is to serve as my office. However, the kids love to come and work at my desk (actually a dining table) with me. They also enjoy reading a book in the cozy seat by the windows.

Right now, the shelves are necessary, holding the majority of our family’s library. While I don’t love the shelves, they are working for us and need to stay. I’m thinking about a fun DIY to make them look more like one unit.

Other considerations would be to add some chairs on the other side of the table, so the kids can easily sit down with me. I’d also like to improve the lighting. This room gets dark in the afternoons. I also need better desk organization, and maybe a little space for files. I know that my desk will get messy at times, but the pile of papers on my desk drives me crazy, and it needs a better place to live.

Before I do anything, I first need to do a massive edit in this space. We need to get rid of all of the books that we no longer read, and I need to clean out the bins. They used to store all of the kids’ materials when they did virtual school. We can find a better home for those items.

Finally, I’d like a plan for how to keep this bookshelf tidy, including possibly labeling the cubbies in a unique way.

Step 2: Inspiration & Color Scheme

I absolutely love this part. Daydreaming about the space is so exciting. I love coming up with style words to guide my decisions about the project. I chose Elegant, Moody, Relaxing, Warm and Inviting. I also know that whatever I do has to flow with the rest of the open floor plan.

Style Words for the Office:
Elegant, Moody, Relaxing, Warm, Inviting

I chose a few inspiration images to get my creativity flowing. I couldn’t find exactly what I have in mind, but I’m ok with that because I want my space to feel unique.

This episode of Fixer Upper: Welcome Home was one of my favorites. The client asked for a European Cottage style. I LOVE this look. It’s warm and elegant, perfect for my home. Because I have a lot of brown tones in the kitchen that I need to work around, this style and color scheme works really well in my house. It also works with our French country architecture.

While I’m not sure if I will use this inspiration in the room, I love the look of tone-on-tone walls and trim. I’m also drawn to the pinky-beige trend, as seen in my recently updated Master Bedroom Closet.

This is another color trend that might work better in our open floor plan. I like the putty toned walls and bookcase with the pops of gold and earthy tones. The contrasting modern light fixture is great too.

I like the gallery walls in both of these images. Maybe I can combine them? I also want to add sconces to that wall. I’d prefer to mostly use family photos, but I’m open to adding art as well. We don’t have many walls in the main living area, so I would love to have some fun pieces in this room.

This room is so cozy and inviting. I’d love to recover the sofa in my office with a blush velvet. A wall of book cases like this would be amazing.

I love fall colors all year round. I think I’d be happy with any of these colors on the walls.

Stay tuned for more updates next week, I’ll start putting together a design board, timeline, and budget. I can’t wait to see this room finished! Here is my finished space from last year, in case you missed it.

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I’ll be back next week to give more updates. Thanks for stopping by my today. Let’s stay in touch! Subscribe below to receive posts by email or follow me on Instagram or Facebook.