As promised, I cleaned up my work space enough to take pictures of our newly completed home office:
You may remember, we converted what was suppose to be the dining room, into the office.
Our biggest addition to the space were the bookcases that we had built by a local carpenter (email me if you need a referral; he did a great job!). The wall behind the desk was huge, and I wanted something that would make a big impact since it’s one of the first things you see coming through the front door.
I replaced the original chandelier with this oversized lantern that I picked up at my Habitat Restore. I blogged about the makeover process here.
To make the shelving pop, we painted the back of the bookcases a dark gray by Sherwin Williams called “Urbane Bronze.”
Since I know we all love a good “before and after,” here’s a look back at how the room started:
This is how I worked for months, shopping for furniture and thinking about how to make my vision of floor to ceiling bookcases come to life. I found the farmhouse table on Craigslist, the metal chairs at a Pottery Barn outlet, and my linen desk chair came from TJMaxx.
The real challenge came when it was time to fill the bookshelves. I didn’t have nearly as many books as I thought, but wanted it to be colorful and have a real “library” feel. Several friends and family members gave me extra books, and I lucked out at a recent Habitat Restore book sale where I bought them by the box-full for next to nothing.
For more color, I moved the Ikat rug from our foyer that I blogged about here (from RugsUSA):
What I like most about the space is that it should easily transition back to a dining room with the addition of some chairs, if we ever need the space. For now, though, I plan on doing a lot more blogging than hosting dinner parties. . . Hope you enjoyed :)
The painting and my newly crafted moss monogram were the inspiration I used to freshen up my mantle.
Making a moss monogram was so easy!
I simply traced around the letter onto the back of a moss mat (ready-made moss glued onto netting, purchased at the craft store).
Then I cut and hot glued the moss pieces onto the monogram. 
I added faux nature onto my mantle---a flower resembling those in the painting, and a pot of grass to balance the moss letter. 
On the other side I placed two yellow ceramic artichokes and a tall pink orchid that mimic the colors in the art. 
All that was needed to complete the mantle was a few brightly colored books and a couple of shiny candlesticks (my favorite go-to items in decor!).
