Office space makeover ~ Before and after

Today I embarked on a little home makeover project and completely transformed my office space. I needed to re-design it, as it just wasn’t working for me anymore. This, my friends, is real life Pinterest. If you’d like to see how it all went down, including the Before pictures, read on…

Before, the space was dull and uninspiring. We actually got this desk for free, from one of our neighbours who was moving and wanted to get rid of it. I was quite chuffed that day – I had just been gifted this MAC computer a few days before and it needed a place to stand on.This is what our work station looked like for an entire year. I honestly don’t know why I didn’t do this makeover before.

Right. It was clear it needed a bit of love. Here are the different steps I took to change this little working corner into a much prettier, brighter, more inspiring space. I went for a clean, bright marble look. It suits the rest of our interior a lot better – my living room and dining room are mostly grey and white. This new design blends in perfectly.

You will need:

Some faux marble adhesive. This brand is called D-C-Fix Marmi Marble Effect Grey Self Adhesive. Length: 2 metres. Width: 68cm. CLICK HERE TO BUY A ROLL.

Cissors

Measuring tape/ruler

1. Start by taking some measurements. My table was a bit awkward to work with, as you can see, it had a curve – not the easiest shape to cover but I got there eventually. You need to work out exactly how you’re going to cover the whole surface, use your measuring tape and ruler – it probably won’t end up perfect but the good thing about this faux marble effect is that you can easily conceal errors. 

2. Get cutting. The back of your marble effect adhesive should look like this, use the lines as a guide so that your cutting is nice and straight. For safety, you might also want to add one centimetre to your measurements, it will give you some leeway for the edges. 

3. Next, start the sticking process. Be very careful and don’t rush it – this is a delicate process. Keep pressing against the sticker, to avoid bubbles.

4. For the corners, this is what I did:

5. For the borders, cut a slimmer strip and stick it along the sides like so:

6. Taddaaaaa. This is what it looks like once the whole surface has been covered:

7. Now here comes the fun part. I grabbed my sharpie, my sketch book and got on Pinterest to look for inspiring quotes. I designed this space not just for myself but for my husband and my sons too. They’re still very young, 6 and 8 years old – I wanted to use motivational quotes that will serve as a reminder to stay focused, to work hard and to love what you do.

8. I used my best calligraphy skills and wrote down a couple of quotes. I them framed them and hung them on the wall.

9. Time to decorate!

10. And here is the final result… A pretty, inspirational, functional working space. Exactly my style, very blogger-friendly (yes, that’s important!) and just easier on the eye than whatever I had going on before.

Let me know your thoughts! And if you ever re-design your space using some of these ideas, let me know I’d love to hear all about it.