Someone asked me a great question a few weeks ago. It was a question that I’ve thought about before, but never actually addressed out loud. The question?

“What are you going to do once you’ve finished designing every room in your house?”

Loaded question, simple answer…I’ll just start over.

You may think I’m being sarcastic (and I partially am), but let me explain what I mean by starting over…again…and again.

It’s now been two years since we bought our home, and since then, I’ve been on this never-ending pilgrimage to find my design style. My office has been the greatest victim of the wreckage I’ve left along my style journey, which has been re-designed about 5 times.

And now, 6. I’ve never heard 6th times a charm, but it’s twice as much as 3 so…it must be twice as charm-y. 

It wouldn’t be a post of mine without sharing how I’ve evolved, so below are just three  different ways my office has looked for the last two years (the other two designs are similar, so I don’t feel the need to share every  single one). In case you’re not keeping track, it’s been through  five (5) different styles up until this point. 

DECEMBER  2017

This was taken the day  I decided I would  start a blog. I’d love to  completely disassociate myself with this image forever, but like I said, I have to share how my style has evolved. 

FEBRUARY 2018

Sticking to things that make me cringe… I remember taking this photo and thinking “I don’t think I’ll  ever take a better photo than this one.” R.O.F.L.

APRIL  2018And the most recent…which partially reflects my current style and doesn’t make me cringe as hard as the others.

I won’t go into detail about how/why my style has evolved so much (that’s covered in this post), but it’s clear that I was going through an identity  crisis, but then slowly but surely, I made my way towards a space that felt more like…me.

I’m ashamed to admit that over the last ~8 months (since the bathroom renovation started), my office has turned into a renovation dumping ground, and I haven’t used it since September. Ugh. That was tough to say out loud.

This is how it currently looks, which is surprisingly a serious improvement vs. two weeks ago:

While I was cleaning out the debris, I decided I would re-design this space again because I miss spending time in here. It’s where I do (did) my best thinking, where I escape(d) to after a long day. This isn’t going to be a bedroom or bathroom type of transformation, just a few simple updates to reflect more of my current style.

Here are my plans:

• I do still love the black walls and will be keeping those as-is. I may use a coat of Farrow & Ball Off  Black on top of the  existing Sherwin Williams Greenblack.  
• Replace:
  • x Desk
  • x Window treatments
  • x  Wall decor/gilded mirror (I’d like to include a similar gilded antique mirror vs. the plastic one you see above)
  • x Green bench (I bought that when I had hopes and dreams of a large green sofa so…don’t need that anymore)
  • x Fan with modern  light fixture
  • x Chair
• Keep:
  • x  Zebra rug
  • x Lamps

Since the main bathroom is our next priority, I want to stay on a tight budget with this re-design. The thought of using only thrifted/facebook marketplace finds popped into my head, and the idea stuck. So that will be the goal…to re-design 90% of this office using thrifted/Facebook Marketplace items.

I’m a huge fan of buying  and selling furniture on marketplace and I feel confident that I can find (almost) exactly what I’m looking for for this space. I plan on doing a separate post on all-things FB MP because I truly believe  that with enough time and patience (lots of patience), you  can furnish an entire room just using MP.  

If I stick to  this goal, it’ll be hard to  put  a deadline on when it will  be finished since nothing on marketplace is guaranteed, but I’d love to have this done within the next 6-8  weeks!

Anddd last but not least, the (current) e-design: