office Archives - Casa Bouquet

The Tropical G office reveal!

At last, I’m free from the catch-all junk room and can work in an inspiring environment. This is Part 4 of the makeover journey from junk room to peaceful tropical office with Kathleen Mapson & Co. [See part 1, part 2, and part 3 here!]

I’ve gone back over all the texts and emails between Kathleen and me as we virtually collaborated on my home office. There were definitely some lessons learned!

Purging and emptying the room was the first step. So much paper that was no longer needed! The Gardener found a local company that would bring a truck to our house to shred and it was well worth it. And now we have two shredders in strategic spots in the house and we’ve vowed to never let the paper mail deluge get to us again. [Tip: go for a 10- or 12-page shredder. It will shred whole unopened credit card offer envelopes!]
Almost all the furniture just appeared in my driveway, in giant boxes blocking my garage door. Quite a surprise when I would go out needing to leave in the morning! Having a moving dolly was a saving grace.
I needed to buy all the items on Kathleen’s source list quickly. When working with stores like World Market, Container Store, and Target, seasonal items disappear quickly. Fortunately I had time to go online, make purchases, and check store availability for pick up. I had a great time the day I was visiting the stores. I learned it was brilliant of me to have the item numbers with me on my phone (yay Evernote!): sometimes things are not on display but someone can go get them “from the back.”
Assembling furniture takes longer than you think. It is good to have “handyman” assistance. One chair had to be taken apart and started over because the slipcover just wouldn’t fit!
A funny discussion: “I’ve found this perfect fabric for your drapes. It’s $25 a yard.” “Oh no, I never pay more than $13! I can’t do this!” “But it fits in the budget.” Trust your designer! Kathleen had the whole design budget in hand. The fabric for the drapes was absolutely worth it.
One of the hardest parts for me was the organizing of ALL THE THINGS. Office paper, ribbon, buttons, sewing tools, all had not been rethought in years. I love upgrading from mismatched tubs and milk crates and plastic reclosable storage bags to ginger jars, baskets, and pretty magazine files!

We are thrilled to show you the results of this home office makeover. Can you imagine me sitting here writing, with my palm tree framed by coral shades, my books and videos on the shelves with pieces I love, and my flower photos framed on the wall? Many thanks, sweet Kathleen, for my peaceful place to work and create!

Now here’s the story and reveal from Kathleen:

Her love for Hawaii and her home being known as the Tropical Cottage directed me to design her space with some white furniture pieces for the cottage feel, mixed with bold colors for the tropical look and feel. Although the room was going to be punched up with color, the overall feeling was to be calm and relaxed – a long way from where we began.

Lisa is one of my virtual clients and we are separated by many, many miles, like over 500! Working with a client virtually is no easy feat – the main reason – because we (the designers) want to get our hands on the space to see everything in person, to touch everything, and to style everything. Luckily for me, all the major items had arrived and she had begun putting things together. I was planning a trip home to my beautiful state, North Carolina, and planned to make a special trip to her home to finish things off as much as I could. My mom, sister, and little baby boy accompanied me and let me just say, were God Sent for this project. Love you mom and sis!

The Reveal

[Be sure to hop over to Kathleen Mapson & Co. to see the reveal photos!] Can’t you just feel the tropical vibe?! I absolutely adore this space. Removing the doors literally gave us just about half of the room back, it is packed with storage, and she has a great work surface to lay everything out for her work, crafting, sewing, and the list goes on. Read the rest of the post here!

“Hi there! I’m Kathleen and I blog over at Kathleen Mapson & Co. I am an interior designer and artist based in metro Atlanta. I love all things creative and artsy and the blog is my virtual creative space. I share my design projects and throw in a dose of design facts and rules over at my blog. I hope you enjoy viewing some of my latest projects and are inspired to turn your house into a home.”

This is a hard post to write. I think everybody must have a junk room, but ours was supposed to be my office, and now you are seeing the pictures! From family and friends moving away and leaving a few bits behind to straightening the house for parties and piling all unorganized stuff in there, I was sewing and working around piles that didn’t have a place to belong.

Once I started to work from home full-time, something had to change! So I got in touch with Kathleen Mapson & Co. I fell in love with Kathleen’s design aesthetic a long time ago. From her painting to her design work, I know she has such a great way of mixing the practical with the fun. She is sharing with us her approach to working with me as virtual and highly opinionated client.

There were two starting points from my end. I wanted a soft green on the walls, so we bought samples of several greens at Sherwin-Williams and painted them on several spots on the walls. I wanted to see how each color looked in the different lights during the day and evening. Kathleen told me she was looking at turquoise and coral. I got out my nail polishes to look at the colors and send photos to Kathleen. The winner was Sherwin-Williams 6715 Lime Granita.

We love to shop at furniture stores at the beach. We seem to have better luck finding items to go with our tropical cottage theme. A trip to Morehead City, NC scored us a turquoise dresser with carved fish on the drawers. More photos to send to Kathleen! She approved and our second starting point is the Guildmaster Waterfront Harmony chest.

Now here’s the story from Kathleen:

Working from home can sometimes be a difficult task as there are always things to do to tidy up around the house. But even more difficult than working from home, is working from home in an office that is lackluster. An office that is unorganized, serves as a ‘catch all’, and where things are not so easy to find and there isn’t anything pretty to look at, is not necessarily conducive to an inspiring or functional place to work. Well, this is exactly how my virtual client felt about her home office when she contacted me.

As a retired professor and now an educational consultant and avid DIYer of everything I can think of, she needed a multifunctional space. Let me give you a quick run down of everything she does in this space. She conducts educational research and writes proposals for her clients, and crafts all kinds of scholarly articles and scientific research projects. She sews like nobody’s business – drapes, roman shades, dresses, and all kinds of outfits and costumes for her sweet little grand baby, and she crafts and does gift wrapping with all kinds of papers. You can read all about her and what she loves on her colorful and informative blog Casa Bouquet.

So why the list above? I wanted you to know what she has to do in this space, so I had to plan accordingly. I called this project Tropical G because of her love for Hawaii and tropical colors. She and her husband refer to their home as a Tropical Cottage and that it is. Her home is eclectic with a fun mix of furniture and it is FULL of color. And when I say color I don’t mean your typical brightly colored floral pillow or painted accent wall. I mean serious color like turquoise bathrooms, an orchid-colored dining room with black floral print drapes, a citrusy lime kitchen with parrot wall paper, and a raspberry pink family room. I know I just made your eyes pop! =) But although each room has a different palette, the colors beautifully and unexpectedly blend. So taking cues from the rest of her home, the office needed to be colorful also.

What we needed to do to create a colorful, yet serene place to work:

Paint – She had her heart set on a calm turquoisey green for the wall color by the time she contacted me. I actually tried to change her mind a bit, but in the end she won. Even as a designer you have to know which battles to fight. =)
Organization – Files and folders, bookshelves, a cabinet of some sort, and baskets for odds and ends.
A Work Surface – Ample space for spreading out client paperwork and sewing and crafting projects.
Drapes – Privacy was not needed, but drapes would soften those hard lines and add some well needed color.
Artwork – She has loads of pictures from Hawaii and lots of awards and college degrees. She is actually Dr. G! They needed to be showcased.
Lighting – The space receives a nice amount of natural light, but can be a little dark at night. We needed to include general lighting and task lighting.
Flat Screen TV – Possibly. The TV was an old box TV and took up too much space.

The Plan – Design Board

Since this was a virtual project – she was located in North Carolina and I in Georgia – our communications were virtual. From planning to almost execution, we met through Google Hangouts and all correspondences were through email and text. It was such a great experience working with her this way.

This in general was the overall plan. Don’t you just love all the coral and turquoise paired with the crispness of the white. (see Kathleen Mapson & Co. to see the design boards!) Ohhh…La…Laaaa….There were other detailed items, but this gives you an idea about our direction. The dresser in the plan was the jumping off point. She found this while on a trip to Morehead City, North Carolina. She texted me photos and expressed her undying love for this piece. I mean, undying love! It was a great fit for the look we were going for, it was scaled appropriately, and the color and carvings were lovely. So why not!

After approval, the plan was in motion! Stay tuned for the reveal and a few upcoming posts about how my client used her sewing skills for this project. She will be posting those over on her blog Casa Bouquet. You don’t want to miss it!

Thanks for reading!