When we bought this house last May, I had dreams of built ins in this office space. In our last space, our third bedroom was a very squished shared office for my husband and I to use. This house has space for us to each have our own office space which was a dream we never thought we could afford.
Last year, I started a budget friendly makeover on this office. We will call that phase 1. I always knew I wanted built ins, and this week I was prepping for just that!
Placement for Built Ins
My office is on the main level, and has one wall with a huge window and one long wall without any doors on it. First, I had to decide where the built ins should go. The long wall or the wall with the window?
I chose the wall with the window. Choosing this wall meant less storage, but more of the aesthetic I want to go for in the office. If you want to see what I did on the long wall, check out last weeks ORC’s progress.
I can imagine a library wall with floor to ceiling bookshelves. There will be storage in the bottom, and plenty of room for books and decor in the two bookshelves on top.
Here’s a sketch I did for myself to visualize it.
Gather Materials for the Office Built Ins
Did I mention this was a thrifty makeover? I don’t have the funds (or the patience) to build these built ins from scratch with premium materials.
So I wanted to have drawers on the bottom with custom built bookshelves on the top that reached the ceiling. Then I looked for some thrifted base cabinets or small dressers for the bases. I found one small set of drawers on facebook marketplace and a file cabinet at Goodwill.
Next was to clear the space so I had a blank space to start with. The old shelves and heat press went to my mom’s house. I started removing the baseboards, and wainscoting on each side of the window.
The crown moulding will have to be removed as well, but I will tackle this once the bookshelves are built.
What’s Next?
Next week I will make my take my final measurements before heading to the hardware store to get this build started. Come back next week to see the progress I make!
Check out the other guest participants and their week ORC progress here.
Leave a Reply