Brooklyn Limestone

The making of my home office - part one

This post is part reno, part decor. I was just going to do a decor post but it seemed out of line with my blog to just go straight to the nearly finished part without recounting how it was rehabbed in the first place.

Traveling back to before we started renovating, the very top floor of the house was a separate apartment while the lower two floors was the owners duplex. (I use these terms loosely as I have a hard time truly calling any space without working plumbing a duplex but I digress). The top floor apartment had what some might call a "kitchen" (again, using term loosely).


Since our plan was to reconfigure the space and make the top floor our bedrooms, the "kitchen" had to go. Before the construction really started, Mr. Limestone did some of his own reno by carefully removing the leaded glass doors from the cabinets and removing the disgustng floor to determine if there was hardwood underneath.

Then during the reno, this room became a sort of garage for extra parts. The clawfoot lived in here for a few months as did the marble top for our master bath vanity.


This room doesn't have the same wow transformation as the kitchen or bathrooms but I think it came out pretty well. The things that were done in here: removed cabinets, wallpaper, old lino floors, new window, recessed lights, electrical outlets, crown molding, skim coat, floors sanded and poly, paint.




But now that the hard work is over, I feel like I need to do something really fun in here. As you can tell, its a small space and its just for me. So I feel the need to go a little wilder in here (as you probably can tell by the bright color I selected for the wall). So I'm adding to my to-do list a project to make my office a little more pretty and whimsical. I want it to be fun and stylish. I already painted it a bright color but I think it needs something more.

Inspired by this photo found on flickr, I think I want to do a similar treatment.


I originally thought I would do something small in the left space between the window and the wall. But in my search for images, I didn't find anything that would work in a tall narrow space. So I moved my attention to the opposite wall with the door that has more space. More space = more work of course.

Naturally Ive looked at about a thousand pieces of clip art and I haven't found anything that just right so I doctored some scroll work I found. My plan is to use a projector to get the image on the wall, trace with a pencil and then fill in with the same color paint that is on the trim. Here is a photoshopped version of what it might look like:

Thoughts?

Disclaimer: I fully reserve the right NOT to do this project if a) I don't have time b) don't feel like it c) can't figure out how to do it without making a mess of it.