DIY Home Office & Art Studio Makeover

Hey there and welcome in. I am so excited about the project I'm going to share with you today. Today we're going to be talking about how I turned a spare bedroom with the great help of my husband into a dream office space. Now the thing that makes this project interesting is I didn't just want a cookie cutter office. I wanted a place where I can do all my work, all my contracting, all my zoom calls, all my analysis, but I also wanted a place that could be my own for things outside of work. I do a lot of art. I do a lot of crafts. I wanted great storage. I wanted a place where I could do those projects and really bring them to life here in my own space. So here's the story and the journey of how I transformed this spare room into an amazing office and art studio. First things first, let's talk about what we were starting with. When we bought this room it did not look like this. The walls were dark. There was gray and blue everywhere. The door was actually bright purple, which was a very interesting choice. Hey, not knocking it, but not quite my thing. And there was a lot of thick carpet on the ground, which doesn't really work for me and my allergies. So we had a lot of tearing out and refurbishing to do. We started with completely removing the carpeting and then I painted this room with the help of my sister-in-law. Afterwards, Chris and I went through the whole house and we decided that we wanted to put hardwood, one continuous color of everywhere apart from the bathrooms. And before committing to any paint colors or any designs, the first thing I always like to do is to kind of brainstorm and virtually design what I'm working on. So in this case, I use Figma, which is a free design software. A lot of people use it in tech and in other places. And I use it to just to scale, make a little version of the room. I kind of took each wall and put them side by side as if I was unraveling the room. And I got to play around with different things. So you could see I put some curtains on the window there. I put some mocked up furniture. I even used a picture of the desk that I ended up refinishing for this space. And I kind of got the ball rolling on getting those ideas. One thing that was really important to me was I wanted some little statement on the wall without making it crowded. I wasn't sure if I wanted boarded batten or paneling, but I knew I wanted a chair rail aspect. So once I had the measurements, it was off to get those supplies. We have loaded up the truck and Joe is the fearless driver. Once we had those supplies and we had to cut them down to size, my husband and I nailed them into the wall. You could completely use a nail gun or another method of attachment. We decided not to glue anything down in case we wanted to remove it later. And we found that using just a hammer and some finishing nails, as well as a little chisel to get the nails all the way in, damaging the trim board was the best way to do that. It was so exciting to see the trim go up on the walls so much so that I kind of abandoned the idea of putting any paneling underneath them. I thought it might crowd the room and it was looking really good. So we decided to move on to painting. Now picking a paint color was hard. I wanted something neutral so that the space could be really versatile. I really like beige colors and creams. I think they just bring warmth and calm to a space. To paint, first we prepped everything. I put tarp all over the floor. We went in and taped every single nook and crevice between every trim. And a lot of other DIYers will tell you that taping is the most tedious part, but I'm also here to tell you that it's the most important part if you want crisp lines and something that looks professionally finished. So I would not say to skip out on that. From there, I went in in my sweats, in my nothing clothes, and I went in with my finishing or my detail brush and I kind of really carefully did all the ceiling lines and all the corners that I knew a roller couldn't get to. Because if you try to roll all the way up, you're either hitting the ceiling or you're not quite making it up to where you want to go. And that helps give it a nice crisp line. So I took time to do that. I know if you might have a shaky hand or you're not used to painting, sometimes taping the ceiling can be a really big deal too. I elected not to do that this time because I have somewhat of a steady hand from painting. But no shame or anything if you decide you want to tape the ceiling for a super crisp line. I'm sure it would look even better than mine. Once all the outside was outlined in paint, I was so excited to finally get rolling the paint on the walls and it was so satisfying even watching this time lapse back. I remember when I was putting it on, I was a little nervous. It was dry and blotchy. I was like, is it still too dark? I don't know. But when the paint was finally on the walls, I had a sigh and a breath of relief because I absolutely love how it looked. I got to see it in different lights the next day and I felt comfortable enough to do one of the most fun parts of the project with my husband, which is to take off all the tape that we had so arduously put down. So here's a few clips of that. How's it looking? Should we just take all the tape and stuff? That's okay. The next day I was so excited. I couldn't even wait. I got back in my work clothes and I came and I got all of the rest of the tarps up so I could finally see the floor and the space and even the rug that I had bought from Facebook Marketplace to see if it all went together. And I was so relieved that it looked really, really good. And I was ready to move on to decorating and bringing some furniture in. Even with just a little bit of paint and a little bit of chair rail, this room was completely transforming. We also had a few more finishing touches apart from decorations and furniture, which was my husband kindly decided that he would help install some curtains for me that I had found once again from Facebook Marketplace. They were super cheap. I think they were like 25 or 30 bucks for both of them. I didn't want to buy anything really expensive yet because I wasn't sure if I was going to like how it looked with the room and I wanted to try out something else first. From there, I started using the office. I had my desk in place. I had my decorations up. I even hung up some of my own paintings, which is really special that sometimes clients will ask in Zoom meetings what those are. And I'm like, oh, I painted those and it's always a fun thing to talk about. But as beautiful as the space was becoming, and let me tell you, I was very happy about that. There was still some functional needs and that was the closet. And my husband once again so kindly said, hey, let's do some built-in storage in your closet to walk you through a little bit of the steps of what it took to get the closet. First, we had to take down the wire rack, which was such an amazing moment. Wire racks are really functional, but I just do not like how they look at all. We got rid of some of the MDF that was on the wall. And before we could move forward, I had to do a vacuum. I really like being clean and tidy and that matters so much to me. I don't like breathing in dust, so I had to do a vacuum. From there, we cut our trim pieces to size and then we could bring them inside and secure them to the wall. Now, there's something that you want to be really cautious about when you're securing something to the wall that your whole wall isn't necessarily all sturdy unless maybe you live in a place where they use bricks or stones for their walls. Most homes here and where I live have studs, which means there's wood supporting behind the drywall. So some places you might screw in will have no support. It's just the drywall there. And other places will have a lot of support and you really want to screw into the studs. So we used a stud finder to find where the studs were. We marked them on the trim. We pre-drilled holes and then we secured those boards to the wall with our screwdriver or with our driver. And that process was not too challenging. Sometimes finding the stud was a little bit interesting. You have to be really cautious with the stud finder, but it was really important because I knew that these shelves weren't going to hold only light things. Sometimes they might hold wooden frames or filing cabinets or anything along those lines. So I needed them sturdy. So those trim pieces had to be secured into the wall. It was so exciting because it was time to cut our big piece of plywood that we would use to separate the left side of the closet from the right side of the closet. It was also one of the funniest parts of this project because there was challenges getting it even inside the closet and maneuvering it in, which we finally got. But securing it to the supports was challenging because I basically had to hide in the part of the closet that was closed behind the plywood and push my hands up against it so that Chris could drill it into the supports. At this point, I could see the frame. I could see everything taking shape, but it wasn't the most sturdy in the world. And that's where the plywood shelves come in. So we went back outside to cut down for those. Just like last time, I did not want to see any dust or dirt or grime. So I got out the leaf blower to get the dust off the plywood and off of our work surface, and that was an amazing hack. So I found that from another YouTube video, but that's a great way to get a lot of dust out of your life really fast if you're working on in a garage or somewhere outside. Of course, I still wipe down the shelves with a little bit of a towel, but it was a great first start and it got a lot of the dust away. From there, it was finally time to put the shelves in the closet. And I was so looking forward to this because it came to life instantly and it got so sturdy. Having the plywood connected to the supports, connected to the side plywood supports, everything got so strong. And honestly, I feel like I could jump up and down in there and it wouldn't fall down, but I'm not going to try because why would I do that? But here's some clips of the finished closet after Chris was so gracious and painted it for me while I was working and I absolutely love it. It holds all my craft supplies. It holds all my work supplies. It holds so much more, all my art, even my degree is somewhere snuck in there. And I think that it completely turned out great. If you're looking for a layout for built-ins for a closet that isn't the biggest closet in the world, I would highly recommend this because it still functions to hold a lot of clothes. And in the future, someone could use this as a completely functional bedroom closet, but for now it's great as an office space and an art studio. As you can see, it took a series of small projects to make this room happen, but it's something anyone can do. With the right tools, with the right creativity, and with a little bit of hard work, you can transform virtually any space. Of course, if this had required something like plumbing or electrical or some huge renovation, it would have been important to get more professionals involved. But for the purposes of building this office and making it the space that I wanted, I couldn't have asked for anything differently. I absolutely love this space. So if you like this video, I would appreciate if you could subscribe and like it. It means the world so I can keep making more videos like this for you guys. If you have any comments of things you'd do differently or questions, please leave them below. I love to hear what you have to say. And thank you so much for watching. I will see you in the next video.