A New Dark Office!

In our home we love light and airy colors. Whites, light greys, you name it. Until we recently painted the office, the only room that was dark {and even then it is only 1/3 of the wall} is Braylens room. When we finally made the time to get the office started we knew we wanted something dark and daring. The room isn’t large at all, so we were a little hesitant to do this, but knew if done right- it could have a great dramatic effect.

This is how the room started out when we moved in. We had the walls smoothed, but other than adding random furniture in, we didn’t do anything to the room until recently.

To go with our daring desire we picked up some Sherwin Williams Granite Peak in their Emerald paint. This color is an awesome dark charcoal-navy color. We had it put in Emerald this time because we knew with the cabinet doors being slid open and closed constantly by a certain toddler, it needed to be super durable!

We started by prepping and painting the cabinets. We got these big beauties off of Craigslist, and were so excited at the potential of them. And then they sat in our living room until we finally finished that room {which was months}. We couldn’t decide if we were going to split up the cabinets and use two in the office, and build a base cabinet for them, and use the other in the playroom- or simply keep them together. In the end we ended up using all three stacked in the office, and didn’t even ‘build’ them in.

Up next was painting the room itself. Even with the window open, I skipped out on this paint job while being pregnant. We were tempted to try some of simple shapes wallpapers after seeing what a friend managed to do with their office with the stuff, but in the end we had the paint already so we figured we may as well use it. Maybe next time? Either way, luckily I married a man who is a speed painter, and he got this room finished in no time!

Once the room was painted and cabinets were brought in, it was time to smile because our vision came out just how we wanted it! Dark and sophisticated, but not too overwhelming. We even painted the outlets and light switches Granite Peak so that the white didn’t stand out too much. I can see myself working here a lot as it’s such a comfortable space. Previously, the office was so drab and I used to find it hard to concentrate on anything but now that’s completely changed. It even looks like a real office! Of course, the windows got no commercial glass nor is it tinted like in my old office building. However, I did hear these glasses are great in protecting your property against burglary. But that’s another home improvement project we can look forward to. Right now we’re thinking of bringing in some new office supplies now just to make it function better but other than that, I love how it’s turned out. I can sit at my desk, jot down what I need, or split my pdfs with the help of https://www.filecenterdms.com/info-pdf-splitter.html and just be productive.

The cabinets are turned out to be perfect for the office. And they hold a ton of supplies. The only thing I am struggling with is that not all {or really any} things that you store in an office are exactly ‘pretty’. Although, I am glad that now when we work from home, we don’t need bulky phones or fax machines anymore. In this day and age, contacting work colleagues and customers is made so simple with the use of a cloud contact centre. You can contact your fellow employees from literally anywhere, so I am free to use the space to place decorative items rather than big office items. However, I can’t use all of the space in these cabinets to decorate, there are a bunch of things that need to actually be stored and used. My solution for now is that I simply put all the ugliest things in the bottom right corner, since you don’t see that section when you walk in the room at all. We definitely don’t have them all full, but over time I am sure that won’t be a problem;)

What do y’all think? Do you like the dark and dramatic? We clearly are not finished with the room, as we never are with any room really. We need to get stuff up on the walls still, but I wanted to show you guys the progress we have made so far. Its truly amazing what a little paint can do:)

Disclaimer: This post is written in partnership with Sherwin Williams. We love and use their brand constantly, and wouldn’t write about a product we don’t believe in!