I’ve been feeling deeply inspired by the direction my new office is heading, even though the room itself is going to be a challenge to makeover due to a small, awkward window and unfortunate angles (more photos to come once Angelo’s things are cleared out, but here’s a peek of said awkward angle):
the man likes a dark gray/black wall, so this before/after will be similar to my previous office
A few weeks ago, my logo designer, Sarah Gross, shared a Substack post featuring an image I haven’t been able to stop thinking about, and has since become the heartbeat of inspiration for my office design. When a spark like this hits, I drop everything to chase it; writing, scheming, oversharing. I fan the flame and follow where it leads.
In that post, Sarah shared her secret source for inspiration: online museums and old book digitations. Specifically, The Victoria & Albert Museum which contains textiles, metalwork sketches, and other forms of artwork digitized into a system that’s free to access online. So cool!
Below is the image from her post that sucked me in. And it’s silly because it’s just a simple textile design. But then again of course it sucked me in…
There’s something about this image from an early 1900’s British (shock) textile designer that made me pause. It’s soft, elegant and quietly detailed. The delicate balance of muted blues & greens, the looping ribbons; a calm, faded kind of beauty. When I tell you I could not.stop.thinking about this textile pattern – I could not.stop.thinking about it. And so naturally, I thought my new office could be inspired by it.
And while I originally planned to have the room designed around the Althea chair from my old office….
I want to push myself to try something new, and I love a truly blank slate. It’s what I thrive on and I don’t like feeling limited in my vision.
So I started my pattern/textile spiral, and these came to mind right off the bat:
There’s one textile I’m heavily leaning toward as the “hero” pattern, but I’m not ready to share it yet, as I’m hoping I might find it secondhand and I swear the universe hides things as soon as you say them out loud.
This whole inspiration spiral solidified what I’ve been feeling for a while. I don’t know what’s shifted in me; I want to say I started noticing this shift after I gave birth to Angelo and it hasn’t really gone away, but I’ve been finding myself drawn to light, airy, & muted colors & spaces. Softer, more refined palettes. At first I thought, “this feels interesting,” but now I’m fully leaning in.
And if you’re thinking “didn’t you just paint your basement shit brown?” Yes, and I still think it’s fabulous and the right choice for that particular space.
TL;DR: I’m once again reinventing blue & green and embracing a softer palette.
While I have a few ~schemes~ in progress, I thought I’d share some of the rooms that are inspiring my design. I’ve been thinking about this space since I found out I was pregnant and knew my office would turn into the nursery, so I’ve had almost a year to think about the direction.
And I keep coming back to BLUE stripe wallpaper. Maybe it’s because I’m missing what would have been a light blue fam room (again, missing blue does not equate to regretting the brown, HELEN). Or maybe this is to be blamed on the blue Mustang I begged my parents to co-sign for when I turned 17.
They declined, and I ended up driving a very sensible Mazda 3, leased with money I earned folding T-shirts at Five Below and ringing up faux florals at Michaels.
All of this is to say, as much as my identity has been built on all things GREEN, there’s a part of me that’s longing for light blue.
Here are some images that are inspiring my office design:
James T Farmer
Lindsay Speace
Elly Poston
A.A Ford Interiors
Maggie Getz Studio
Paloma Contreras
Hughes & Lutz interiors
Cathy Kincaid
Becky Nielsen
Anywho, my maternity leave is almost over and I’m going back to work in a few weeks. My hope is to work in the space (dark gray walls and all) to get a feel of what exactly I want to do in there. Excited to share more!
LOVING this direction. Can’t wait to see how you execute per usual!
The V&A Museum in London is a treasure trove! I spent an entire day there in January. I was alone and could go at my own pace, which was such a delight. It’s a design lover’s dream! Lee Jofa’s Hollyhock is actually an exact reproduction of a piece from their archives. And they had Hollyhock trays in the cafeteria! None for sale in the gift shop, unfortunately.
As always, I’m excited to see how this project unfolds. I have a feeling that once you’re forced to work in a gray box daily, that office makeover will be move along quite rapidly!
Excited for this!!!! Where will Angelo be moving his office too, and will you be designing that as well?