Welcome to my Vintage Office

My home was built in 1930. The living room is an odd, long rectangle, which was originally two separate rooms- a bedroom and living room. Having one large room is better for our living space but it made a strange space to figure out what to do with. One side has our tv, sofa, book shelf and such and we pretty much hang out in that space all the time. This is the other side, my office.

When we first moved in, we set the computer over here and some random decorative stuff, along with a futon for extra seating. It wasn't a great use of this space so I decided to make it a multi purpose area for my creative and business stuff early last month. Now, I have a great area to blog, sew and paint.


My desk is a mish-mash of whatever desk sized furniture I had around the house. I painted this vintage sewing desk and set it next to my Cosco cart, which is a great piece to hold my printer and office bits. The knitting basket under my desk is the perfect size for hanging files and extra printer paper. The big window over-looks my beautiful historic neighborhood and sweet front porch, where the kids love to have tea parties and I sit in the mornings while I check my online banking and scroll through Instagram. I stuck a few cork tiles on the wall here with my daily schedule, local events calendar and take out menus. The stained glass window swings open to let in fresh air, especially on rainy afternoons.

I found this vintage bucket chair at a little junk shop down the street a few weeks ago and painted it pink, to bring out a little more of the pale pink in my curtains. I always keep my phone nearby to listen to music on Pandora while I work  (usually She and Him or Fleetwood Mac). My binder over there on the edge of the desk holds my blog's editorial calendar and big desk calendar schedules sponsored posts.



That yellow piece of washi tape on my laptop says "STOP WASTING TIME!!"- a reminder from myself to limit my time spent on Pinterest and Facebook. 



Our fireplace isn't functioning anymore but it's great for extra book storage!

I'm a fabric addict and there's plenty of evidence of that throughout my house. I have a lot of different bark cloth prints in the living room and office. The curtains tie in both sides of the space. To cover the modern futon, I found these two barkcloth curtain panels on sale at an antique mall. They had some of the same colors from my curtains so I just drape them and tuck them around the cushions. They pull off for easy washing and to lay the futon down, if needed.

I love that my house has a lot of built-ins and closet space. These shelves had very pretty glass doors on them when we moved in but I took them off for ease of access. The back was ugly wood paneling so I found this fun wrapping paper at Target a few weeks back and used double sided tape for a temporary pop of color.



These thrifted kitchen canisters were missing lids and mates to the set but they're just the right size for pens, scissors, camera memory cards and other stuff.



A damaged Enid Collins box purse is just the right size for acrylic paints



A girl needs a pink sparkly pencil box and some lotion to keep hydrated, especially in the winter.


Sparkly pink lucite shoe boxes make the best little drawers for watercolors, tape, paper clips and washi tape.



As part of my morning routine, I fill this pretty carafe with ice water, tea or water with lemon/cucumber slices. I am terrible about drinking enough water so if I set myself up early in the day, I'll not forget. Since I was making plans to break bad habits, I keep clear polish and a nail file in the little green glass dish to curb my nail biting habit. The lid-less Lucite purse behind the tumbler keeps a few pens and sticky notes handy.

My home is full of mostly vintage furniture and decor but we keep it really kid-friendly with metal floor lamps, sturdy furniture and washable fabrics. My rule is, if I'll be completely devastated if something vintage gets broken or messed up, I don't bring it into the house in the first place! I keep glass things up high and leave plenty of things down low that the kids can play with, including some mid century kids books, a bakelite view master and train case full of tinker toys.

Since the kids love to have a project to work on while I'm in my office, they have plenty of open floor space for legos, coloring books and the train set. Olivia's vintage desk, a Christmas gift from her Paw-Paw Danny, sits in the corner with some dry erase work books so she can practice her letters before starting Kindergarten next fall.




I hope that you enjoyed my cluttered but cozy vintage office. Stay tuned in the near future for more visits into my vintage home!