Our work-from-home space

Now that John and I have been working from home for almost two years, we’ve settled into a good routine and created a cozy space for both of us to work. Luckily, we renovated our house right before the pandemic and reconfigured the upstairs to create this sitting room off of our bedroom. When the pandemic started, this room transitioned to a shared office. But, because the room is basically part of our bedroom, we didn’t want it to feel like an office. We wanted a happy and cozy space that could serve as an office during the work day but could be a hangout space in the evenings and on the weekends.

We started with this rug from Safavieh and added some chairs we inherited from friends who moved away. These chairs have been through heck and back–John had kittens for a short period of time, and their claws did a number on the chairs, plus the leather is tearing in one of the seats–but the chairs are still comfy and serve their purpose well. The leather in the chairs, the slightly industrial-looking side table, and the modern ceiling fan balance out the pink walls (Blushing by Sherwin Williams). The giant pouf is from Article.

John’s turntable is in one corner of the room, behind the BIG fiddle leaf fig. The art above the turntable was a gift from me for his 40th birthday — it’s a list of 40 things I love about him.

The side table near our chairs holds a bunch of colored pens, a diffuser, and a few other odds and ends in the drawer (including a chocolate stash). A power strip hides under one of the chairs.

This room also holds our secretary (see the refinishing process here). On the open shelves, I display a few things that make me happy: our wedding invitation, dried flowers from our wedding, a very old jar of jam I made, cards from the kids, a beautiful crystal from my sister, a photo of my parents, and an old bird’s nest I found last year. It’s a random collection, but each of these items makes me smile!

I use the drawers to store office supplies (tape, scissors, mailing stamps, etc). On evenings and weekends I try to put my work laptop in one of the drawers and close the drawer as a symbolic end to the work day.

If I want to use the secretary as a desk, I can pull around the chair in the corner (in the photo, it’s holding a plant), and slide it up to the fold-out desk. Kids’ artwork hangs above the chair.

I love how happy and cozy this room feels, even on the blustery winter day when I took these pictures.

If you’re working from home, please tell me what you enjoy most about your home work space. Do you have any tips for creating a calm work space at home?