Travel-Themed Office

A cluttered spare room is turned into an organized office space for under $1,000.

After

All About

Product Ideas

Newlyweds Emre Sahin and Sarah Wetherbee have a spare room, which they use primarily as an office. Unfortunately, it has ended up looking more like a catchall room than a cohesive work area.

The Dilemma

Before

The idea is to transform the room into a harmonious work space for two while bringing in storage. In addition, they would like to have a cozy reading area with ample lighting. Snijders plans to tie everything together by displaying the many souvenirs from their world travels.

The Solution

After

Here's how the design team completes the travel-themed office space:

The walls are painted dark burgundy since the room is full of natural light.
The guest bed is removed to make room for a second work space. Two bookcases are placed on either side of the window. Interior doors are used for the desktops and are outfitted with two legs on one end and attached directly to one of the bookcase shelves to stabilize the opposite end.

Design coordinator Charles Burbridge builds a box seat to bridge the space between the two bookcases. The seat is stabilized with partitions underneath, which also define the storage units.

Design coordinator Summer Baltzer upholsters a seat cushion for the window bench. She uses four-inch foam for the fill and cuts fabric into panels for the top, bottom and all four sides. She wraps piping with the same fabric and stitches it to the panels. Finally, she attaches all of the panels, slides the slipcover over the foam and stitches the seam closed.

Burbridge comes up with clever solutions for the lighting issues. He uses two inverted woven baskets for light shades, which are used over each work space. He also turns three plastic waste cans into colorful light shades with the addition of pendant light fixtures. He cuts a hole in the bottom of each, paints a simple design and decoupages tissue-paper shapes for decoration. Two of the lights are used over the window seat and the third is placed over the new rattan reading chair.

Snijders frames a cork board with four 1" x 4" pine boards and adds vintage travel labels to tie in with the theme. He also decorates a trunk with more of the same labels.

The new reading nook consists of a rattan chair, Burbridge's overhead light and netting draped down to the floor.

After

The Cost

Furniture - $702

desktops: Lowe's - 28" interior lauan doors, #10695
desk legs: IKEA - Curry, #50036501
bookcases: The Barn / Furniture Mart, Inc. - BCC248412M / Oak
trunk: yard sale
rattan armchair: R & R Design Imports
cushions: Robert Wylie

Fabric and supplies - $135

mosquito netting: Linens 'n Things - Siamcanopy, #718022496076Upholstered Seat Cushion
upholstered seat cushion: Foam Mart - Woven Harvest Wheat Beige, #4011035
piping, buttons, four-inch foam, upholstery needle and thread: Foam Mart

Paint and supplies - $66

paint: Benjamin Moore - Classic Burgundy / #1-741

Accessories - $49

banana leaf: R & R Design Imports

Lighting - $47

hanging pendant lights: IKEA - Hemma cord set, #10175810
plastic wastepaper baskets used as shades: IKEA - Fniss wastepaper basket, #20052012 / various colors

Total Cost - $999