Home Office Inspiration and Update

Welcome to a huge post you can hopefully use for home office inspiration or just enjoy my home office update! This post contains the odd affiliate link but absolutely everything was bought and paid for by myself (obviously there are gifted blogging items within the images, but everything for this update, furniture etc, was paid for.)

We’ve been fortunate enough to have a home office for the past 5 years now. Previously it was shared as a half office/half bedroom for my brother when he would only be here for half of the week. A very kind and generous sacrifice on his behalf, helped me tremendously when it came to pain management and working successfully as a freelancer.

For the update, we settled on the exact same double tower design as before. We tried different size units (as we have more in our bedroom) but this really did look the best and give us the most space. Here’s a throwback to when it was just my brother’s bedroom and look at the office over the years.

Before

After 

Upgraded / Updated Office

My office has had many updates over the years, adding more and more storage until eventually, it’s no longer half a bedroom as my brother has his own house now. We took our time deciding what to put in the new space, would we have a bed just because that’s what we’re used to? A wall of storage? Or perhaps nothing there at all? After many many clearouts during this pandemic, I have been optimising spaces and getting rid of anything we don’t need, which meant I gave a lot of things away and cleared a lot of open space.

We did debate not having anything in the office at all and keeping it clear to use for shoots, but in the end, we decided on yet another Kallax from IKEA for storage and so we could have some beauty carousels on display. We have around 4-5 boxes that are currently empty so there’s room to grow.

We’ve centered the Kallax unit to give us space down the side for photography equipment, and our essential office fan. We marble vinyl wrapped the top of the unit just to protect it a little more, and all the carousels have felt protectors on the bottom to help stop scratching. These beauty carousels are 1.5 bigger than others on the market and at £27.99 I can’t recommend them enough.

The middle unit is from an Acrylic Jewellery Box With Blush Dividers, currently, I can’t find it online but there are lots similar. With the amazing Julien Macdonald Beauty Illuminating Mirror that I bought from Boots at Christmas on top just for something visually nice to look at, plus I use this mirror to do my hair (and my zoom in Eko mirror for my makeup).

The chair of dreams is the most fat-friendly occasional chair I’ve ever come across! I bought it in leopard print with a matching stool for my mum’s room and noticed how sturdy and wide it was. I had just given away two other velvet occasional chairs that were horrendous to sit on, so this was a big surprise as not only do they look great, they’re comfortable, which is hard to find! It’s from Cult Furniture. Currently no longer in stock but I did lots of posts about these chairs a lot on Instagram for weeks so hopefully you’re following me on there.

So what else has changed? It’s basically always been IKEA and using the units to create a more built-in look, the only difference is now instead of having two IKEA desktops that were cut down for size and wrapped in marble vinyl, we’ve got one whole piece that has been custom made. I won’t lie, I hated it at first, it’s a lot thinner, I didn’t like the black edge, and I hated the white rim around the entire desk. A couple of weeks later and the white edging is protecting all the walls, the black edge looks intentional with my colour scheme. The desk is also extremely durable!

You may notice the colour is pretty much the same as before, well that’s a talent in my family. My mum wanted her bedroom refreshing years ago only to discover she picked the exact same colour and shade. It’s been a laughing joke for years and I genuinely did think I had picked something slightly different, I thought perhaps darker, but instead, it is the exact same. The only difference is that we’ve added glitter to every wall. I mean, why not? After staring at them every single day whilst shielding, a plain wall is a sad wall. I absolutely love the shimmer and sparkle.

They are Valspar Paints, the colour is Aqua Mosaic and it’s the Valspar Glitter in silver that we added. We actually didn’t put that much in the teal, however, after hand buffing the walls, with Hemway buffing pads (I don’t recommend their glitter though, long story!) it looks like a fairy exploded. Even the light surrounding walls have glitter, it’s not too in your face but when it catches the light it’s really lovely.

I had the mirrors a few years back but sadly they fell off and broke over time. I really liked how they looked so I managed to find the exact ones on Amazon, originally they were just a couple pound each from B&M.

Everything (as you might be able to see) is completely within arms reach. This really helps to manage my pain as I even have a massage device, massage gun, heat creams, medication, and even a coffee machine for motivation. I have lots of tricks and things I’ve learned to help me get through working days with my chronic pain. We even have matching comfy office chairs that have been great with my back. This is the second one I’ve had now in 5+ years, the first is going strong at my friends’ house.

I mentioned the white edging protecting my walls earlier and it’s even protecting my new beauty organisers as well. Previously I had similar units but they were so close to the wall that opening them had damaged the hinges to the point where they had completely broken. They’re still useable and I’ve given them away where they’ll have a happy new home, but Anya likes to lay on top of mine and I have palettes in the top so I treated myself to two new Display4top Acrylic Clear Cosmetic Makeup Organiser units.

Alfie’s desk has massively evolved, from a very old iMac that he moved into my house with, to my old iMac (now at my brother’s), to his own duo-screen, fancy custom-build from Fierce PC set up. Due to the pandemic, Alfie’s had to find a job working from home which means he wanted two screens to better manage his workload. He has an HD webcam for zoom calls, a Steelseries Headset for work and gaming, and a Razor Keyboard with optional quiet pads to reduce tapping noise when he types. It’s all been quite thought out and both of us have exactly what we need to be able to do our jobs.

The big unit between us also works really well as a privacy screen. Great for working with sensitive information, or even just shopping and surprising each other. He’s just picked up another screen (this one will be going to our friend who is also working from home, you see what I mean about giving away? No waste here!) so that he doesn’t have to use a box underneath to get the same height.

After Alfie suggested I started gaming on the PlayStation, I kind of took over so he looked into PC gaming instead. Hence the fancy computer, definitely not essential for home working, but for his gaming it’s amazing. We can even fly into the Warzone together! Gaming couple alert! We’re still looking into ways to optimise Alfie’s desk, what monitors would be best, their position (have you seen people having their monitor’s portrait way?), and cable management.

Apart from a couple more things potentially added to the walls, I think we’re done for now! The only real change was glitter in the walls and a new carpet, everything else has just been upgraded! What do you think about my home office inspiration and update?