Welcome back to the Fall One Room Challenge – week two! Last week I shared the overall design plan for our home office. You can check that out here.

This week I am sharing how I came up with the room layout. I also like to refer to this as the go-round-and-round-and-back-to-the-first-layout phase. Whatcha gonna do? Sometimes you have play around with the layout for hours and possibly days, until you make up your mind. Oh, is that just me?

The first big decision was whether to have a floating desk so you can face the door. Or a perimeter layout and face the window.

We both do not like to have our backs to the door. Having a floating desk allows for that. But, when my husband I were chatting about what works and does not work in the office, we decided a perimeter layout would be best. The space is rather small, and you can see from the previous layout that a desk coming out into the room really cuts things off and leaves little room for moving around in the space. He thought he could get used to facing out the window. Hey…he can wave to all the passerbyers!

BEFORE

With the general layout decided, we were well equipped for our design appointment with California Closets. As you’ll recall, I was originally planning to install the office built-ins myself using Ikea cabinets. But, when that was no longer an option due to COVID related shutdowns, we decided to give California Closets a call.

{Full disclosure here…California Closets came out and designed our space back in July. The wait for installation was over two months…semi-torturous for me. Installation took place in late September. Yes! So the timing was perfect for the Fall Challenge}

The second major design decision was whether to do upper cabinets. And if we did upper cabinets, what layout did we want for them? You would think that would be a pretty easy decision. But no. Our California Closets designer was super patient with me. He made several renderings for me and took his time helping me figure out what I wanted.

Ultimately, I decided on no upper cabinets at all. The final decision was truly based on the cost. Those darn uppers put us way over budget. I may have pouted just a little bit. However, only for a short bit.

I knew I could come up with another solution that would still give me some added storage up high. Challenge accepted!

I knew the solution was going to be some kind of shelving.

However, I don’t care so much for shelving. I know! Let me explain. First, I don’t like dusting them or having to move all the things to do so. And second, because I’m super short in stature…LOL!…I can’t reach most of them anyway. I really wanted library shelves, but was worried that after all the time to build them, I would not like them based on these things. Also, the office has to function as a private office for my husband during the week. So, I am not able to do any major projects in here and still be done in six weeks.

The office has high ceilings and an offset window. So, I finally decided on shelving, placed to the left of the window, for balance. I’m excited to see it installed in the next couple weeks. In the mean time, here is where we are with the cabinet and desk installation. Including one missing door because it was damaged. They are coming next week to install that.

Wall paint color: Sherwin Williams Eider White | Trim color: Sherwin Williams Pure White

Love the new desk built-ins! They have been functioning very well for both my husband and myself. He has the big space and I have the smaller. My teen daughter is loving it as well. We keep finding her doing homework in here in the evenings…love.

Thanks for following along! I’ll also be sharing behind the scenes and room progress over on Instagram.

Follow all the other fabulous participants here.