office inspiration.

Other than the bathroom, our latest work-in-progress room has been our office. We painted it quite awhile ago but that was basically where the updates stopped, other than hanging one picture: our guest book photo frame from our wedding.

Something about the room always bothered me. I wasn't a huge fan of the color because it was darker than I hoped it would turn out. That and the room only had two pieces of furniture: a beautiful desk that Rob made in high school and a bookshelf. It felt empty and awkward the way that it was set up.

About a month ago, I rearranged the placement of the furniture, hung some curtains, and put a wall decal up (that Rob had given me before we even moved into the house!). Those few things made a huge difference in my feelings towards the room. About a year ago, Rob's grandma gave us a cedar chest that belonged to her mom (I think). It has been in storage because we didn't have any room for it at the apartment and I wasn't sure where to put it in the house. We finally had Rob's parents bring it to us from Muskegon and I was able to [mostly] complete the look of our office.

My inspiration came from The Nate Show, an interior decorating (and more!) show that I've taken to watching every morning. I think it's such a great show! Nate probably still wouldn't like my style, but that's ok, I like to pretend that I know what I'm doing. I think Rob gets a good laugh every night when he comes home and I say: "Guess what I learned on The Nate Show today!" I'm thankful my husband loves me no matter how strange he thinks I am! One thing Nate always says on his show is that picture collages tell the story of your life and should be made up of mismatched frames and a combination of black/white photos and color photographs - even if it seems strange to mix-and-match color and black/white. I love clean lines, matching pieces, and even spacing so I had a really hard time coming up with this layout and not putting the same size frames together! Nate also says that every house needs a tray with a stack of books. That seemed easy enough, especially since I had a bamboo tray with a crack in it that I don't use very often, we have plenty of old books laying around and I had a great coffee mug that had a crack in it to add to the mix! And I got all of the black frames from the Dollar Store!

Now I'm looking forward to someday adding a comfy chair for reading (I'm hoping this will inspire us to do our class reading next year when we're both back in school!) and to adding more frames and pictures to the collage wall once Jake and Sarah's wedding happens next month and after my mom, sister and I take a trip to Chicago next weekend!

I'm not sure what my next project will be. What inspires your design?