new office is a bit unexpected

I finally completed the new office makeover. 

Well, its not actually complete but probably as complete as it will get.

Is any room ever really complete?

Let's revisit the "before."  

It was dark; dark green walls with dark furniture.

My husband loves green and cycling 

and our alma mater, the University of North Texas.

I wanted bright, clean, vintage, industrial.

So, I needed to figure out how to get a 

bright, clean, vintage, industrial, green, cycling, UNT 

office on a shoestring budget.

ugh

 The "after"

Well, it's light, bright, clean but it didn't turn out as I planned.

There were a couple of unexpected turns that I think worked out

better than I could have planned.

We spent less than $400 to redo this office.

Many of the things in here were shopped from our own home.

We spent about $50 on this desk from Ikea. 

It's clean, white, I guess some type of melamine top

with simple legs.  It's a bit modern.  I'm not a modern decor kind of person

but I like the look of it in this otherwise not modern room.

It is a big workspace and very easy to clean.

I tried to incorporate little touches to please my husband.

He is a "Dr. Pepper"aholic.  

I found this old vintage Dr. Pepper bottle to hold 

whatever these things are I put in it.

Let me point out at this point that the floors are not dirty.

They are painted concrete and a little worn.

They chip a bit and wear in places and sort of look

like the floor you might see in an old industrial loft.

I'm saying I like that look for right now

because I'm just too lazy busy to repaint.

These chairs were free.  Yep free.

They are 1950s original iron butterfly chairs that belonged to my godparents.

They originally had late 1950's turquoisy-aqua covers and sat

on the back deck of my godparents' midcentury modern tri-level house

my godfather designed.  I remember how cool I thought it was 

to sit in these as a young child.

I spent about $100 on new duck cotton covers.

This lamp was free as well.

This work lamp was attached to my father's old jeweler's workbench.

I took it off and attached it to this little stool as a lamp for the office.

Its so cool and swivels and adjusts to almost any position.

I didn't plan to have vintage midcentury modern butterfly chairs

in the office but I like them. 

With the exception of appliances, cars and my iphone,  

I just don't like anything really that's modern but these work.

I may warm them up a bit with a neutral throw when I find the right one.

These reproduction french maps on linen paper are perfect for my husband.

As a cyclist, he is a huge fan of the Tour de France so these maps fit right in.

This bookcase was already in the office.  I just painted it and 

removed some of the shelves to make it more interesting.

I still have lots of blank shelf space to fill 

when I find just the right things to put there.

Besides neutral colors of cream, white and light brown, 

I decorated with mostly green items.

I ordered the organizer above and basket below online.

I think they were on sale for about $35 for both.

Inside the basket are several vintage green chalkboards.

I may hang those on the wall.  I'm not sure yet.

These cute little things are perfect card or note holders.

We also spent about $60 on the neutral shag rug from Ikea.

Shag? Yep, shag. Its really comfy.

The huge green windmill in the corner was reworked into a floor lamp.

This room isn't perfect yet.  

This corner drives me nuts.

I'm waiting for my husband to hide those TV cords.  

I'm sure he'll get around to it someday.

windmill floor lamp #2

Yep, we made another windmill floor lamp

...for the new office this time.

You may remember last year when we made this one.

 It's one of my favorite lamps.

 We started with this old windmill base.

We used a lamp kit (about 10 bucks) 

we picked up from Home Depot. 

 We added a shade and in just a few minutes 

we had this super cool unique floor lamp.

When we came across another super cool

windmill base, this time in a perfect shade of green,

we just had to make another one.

 This base is a little bigger than the other one.

It also has that great shelf like base at the top.

That made it a little more difficult to figure out

where to put a shade.  Adding it to the very top

would make the entire lamp soooooo tall.

 So, we decided to use an Edison bulb 

and let the bulb show; no shade.

The top of this windmill looks a little like a cage already

so that cage would be the "shade."

sorry this is a little blurry. bad time of day for pic.

You can see from the side at the very top

how we just dropped the bulb down.

You can't see it but the four top "prongs"

were secured together with wire

so they created the perfect size opening to hold the bulb.

Now we have another interesting floor lamp.

It looks sort of like a piece of industrial art

during the day and its a functional lamp at night.

The bottom half of this lamp could also be used

to clip pictures, photos or papers to with some vintage clips.

The rest of the new office is coming along.

I hope to have it finished later today or next weekend.

I'm just working on the fun part, decorating!

I just can't decide exactly where I want things to be.

2013 goals update-the office

At the beginning of this year,

 I wrote a post documenting my home project goals for the year.

It's pretty clear that I won't be accomplishing very many of these projects 

but I have actually been working on a couple of them.

One of those goals was this:

#9 redo office: "We did the office about 3 years ago in the style my husband wanted.  

It had a lot of green and a lot of wood.  It was a bit manly let's say but nice.  

It was so nice that my son slowly started taking in his music equipment bit by bit and before we knew it, the office became his recording studio.  Do you know how neat and tidy and careful young teenage boys are?  Let's just say the office isn't so nice anymore.  My son has moved his equipment to his room upstairs now so the office is ready to become our home office again.  Yes, I have everything I need for this room too and I might have the will to do it.  I just need to pick a paint color." Jan. 2013

We cleared out the office and here's a bit of what we had left.

So, we have dark green walls which my husband loves

but I don't.  

We also have a dark green antique chair that's okay.  

Then we have an old, but not old in a good way, huge stained 

(supposed to be there wood stain and not supposed to be there soda stain) 

computer desk and shelves. 

The desk has a place for a computer CPU and a pull out keyboard

all of which was really nice 12 years ago.  

My mac laptop doesn't need that much space.

Oh and yep, that's an old Victrola in the corner.

I want this office to look completely different. 

I want it to look bright, fresh and clean 

with vintage and industrial touches I like

but also incorporating my husband's favorite green color

and love of cycling and our alma mater.

Luckily, we went to the University of North Texas 

and the university's color is green.  

So, this should be easy.

We've done quite a bit but the office isn't quite finished.

I thought I would give you a sneak peak anyway.

I've gathered things around the house that are green and 

bought a couple of inexpensive repro green metal things for storage.

A few years ago, I picked up these "look old but I don't think they really are"

french maps that are vintage looking paper on linen.  They are super cool

and remind my husband of the stages of the Tour de France.

A green metal locker basket on a white shelf will be great storage.

Picked this up for next to nothing at Hobby Lobby a few years ago.

Looks like a great little holder for notepads.

This vintage cycling poster is huge and was already in the office.

It will stay there.

Found this huge old green windmill base hiding in someone's garage.

Denis, who writes the blog, RubyGrace's and is a dealer at our antique mall

posted pictures on Facebook of his newly organized garage.  

I spied this windmill base in his pictures 

and he let me take it off his hands at a really reasonable price.

Thanks Denis!

I have big plans for it.

Remember this?

This is the old windmill base turned floor lamp in my dining room.

We're going to turn the green one into a slightly different

floor lamp for the office.

This is an old salvage piece of green metal that will be a magnet board.

We have a pair of authentic mid-century butterfly chair frames.

These were my godparents' patio chairs and I inherited them.

The covers were worn out but we will be getting new cream colored

replacement covers for them.  Love these!

This will be the office chair.  It's been in my living room just

sitting in a corner waiting for the perfect spot.

It's a little old wood, leather and burlap

and will bring a bit of warmth to the space.

We've also painted the walls a creamy white.

This office could be finished in a quick weekend if I could

just do one thing....

...finish painting that bookcase.  I started, stopped, started again, stopped

and just can't make myself finish it.  

Someday I'll get it done because I just can't wait for this office to be finished!

What do you think?

Do you like the direction this is going?

Its the Simple Things

If you are ever in the north Texas area, you must visit 

Simple Things Furniture Company.

They are re-opening their store this week

in a brand new location and it is amazing!

I asked them if I could share the news and

some of the pictures here on my blog because 

you just have to see this place.

This isn't just a regular furniture and home decor store 

where you walk in to see the merchandise.

It's an experience. 

   How many stores do you go into and actually marvel at the walls of the building or notice the ceiling and the floors.  

The place is a beautiful structure.  

You'll want to move right in. 

Can someone put these floors in my house please?

Once you get past the stunning architecture of the building

 (which they created from a generic warehouse space),

get ready for your jaw to drop.

Here are some pictures of inside Simple Things.

Those seltzer bottles are not just any bottles.

See the tag?  It says Joe T. Garcia's which 

is a restaurant icon around here. How cool.

This is so me.  Love the pop of red!

Not only will you want to buy everything,

but you will be inspired with decorating ideas.

I know.  Your jaw dropped.

Close your mouth before you drool.

Are you wanting more?

Get ready to blow up your Pinterest account.

Click here to visit their blog and see more pictures

of how they built this store and more of what is inside.

Better yet, visit them at 

7401 W Vickery

in Fort Worth, Texas.

What do you think?  Are you in love with this place?

What did you pin?