Created in collaboration with Photowall
Hey Owlets,
If you’ve caught up on my recent posts you’ll know about the stress of buying and renovating your first home (I’ll talk about it one day, when I’m less emotionally scarred). In recent years my hybrid freelancing and blogging career has grown in leaps and bounds, to the point that when looking for a house one of our non-negotiables was a second bedroom to use as an office.
If you follow me on Instagram then you’ll know what’s coming. After living here for 3 months exactly as I write this, we still haven’t unpacked. I talked about what’s been going on in my long-overdue life update, but all you really need to know is that my office has become a dumping ground, and with two bank holiday weekends in a row we’ve decided now is the time to sort it.
The Space -
The space is a little frustrating to work with. The room is a good size, but there was a sink in the bedroom (I know, 90s houses in the UK…) which we absolutely wanted to get rid of. The problem with this is that my office is above the stair and the sink was hiding the slope in the stairs so we had to keep that section boxed off, even with the sink removed. The second problem is that the builder we hired didn’t add any structure the block which means nothing of any decent weight can be put on top (and nothing that vibrates, so that puts my coffee station or printer idea out of commission).
To the left of the awkward useless box is a strange corner which is the perfect size to not quite fit anything - it’s too deep, to narrow, too square… that whole corner of the room is a bit of a functionality nightmare. Other than that, my office is a good size and fairly square so it’s flexible.
The Vision -
As the blogging side of my job moves more towards video content I want to create a background where I can film without needing to move loads of things. I also need a section of white wall and open floor for any flatlay or lifestyle photography, and obviously a desk to work at. In addition to that, I wanted somewhere for guests to stay as the property prices forced a move away from them.
I also want the space to feel inspiring. I want to be able to look around the room on a day where I’m not feeling creative and say “oh yes, I didn’t think about that”. My plan for this is to combine goals and use photographs and drawings of my favourite places to create a backdrop that’s good for video and fuel my creativity. I think having an office will improve productivity, particularly if it's an office that makes me feel inspired to create.
The Plan -
I’ve already got my desk from our flat, which I’ll be using for now. We had originally planned to do the IKEA worktop and drawers hack, but it seems pointless to do something so custom when we don’t want to stay here for long, so we’re working with what we’ve got. I also bought a sofa bed from Dunelm (in bright yellow, of course). This gives me somewhere to move to when I get lethargic throughout the day, and gives our friends somewhere to stay. I shouldn’t be trusted with measurements apparently, so the sofa and desk will fit where they fit and anything else just has to work around it.
For the awkward corner, the plan is to turn into an open wardrobe. Ideally I’d like to have a rail running across the length of the awkward wall, then fill in underneath with shoe and bag storage and drawers. Being honest, I don’t think that’s going to happen for a while as it calls for a professional - I’ve already installed one wardrobe rail and it’s hanging out of the wall already. But for now at least you know the plan.
Obviously the first step to creating my office is simply to empty out all of the boxes and leftovers from our flat which never found a home. Most of it will go in the loft for now as we don’t have time or energy to sell/give things away before our cruise, so that’s a later Becky problem. After that we’ll hang all of the pictures (wish me luck) and try to create some kind of storage solution with the furniture pieces that we already have/can find on Facebook marketplace.
The Process of Creating a Gallery Wall -
I originally titled this section “how to create a gallery wall” but having actually hung everything, this section would be better titled “how NOT to create a gallery wall”. One thing I did do well was choosing my images. I wanted to use most of my own images to serve as inspiration on days when I’m not feeling inspired, but I also had the painting that I was given in Skagen and I didn’t want it to be the only drawing/painting on my wall.
To create my gallery wall I scrolled through some of my favourite photos. I would suggest trying to choose similar colours so that there’s a feeling of cohesion between the images - I naturally gravitate towards bright turquoise and orange-toned yellows so I didn’t really have to pick my photos too carefully. If you want to use your own images and add an element of cohesion then I use Photoshop Express on my phone - if you create an account and sign in then it lets you access HSL which is where you can adjust the brightness, tone and saturation of individual colours. The images don’t all have to match, but having similar tones will really help your wall to feel carefully curated.
To get my images printed I uploaded them to Photowall. I often find that other printing companies either expect you to only choose from their art or they have very limited printing ratios, so having a long list to choose from on Photowall’s website made creating my dream gallery wall much easier. I chose a combination of standard landscape, standard portrait and square - I considered doing some panoramic prints but I thought it would make things too complicated if I ever wanted to swap the images out in future. As well as allowing you to print your own images, Photowall has a selection of art that you can get printed, including the line drawing style artwork that I love, so I chose three of Photowall’s travel themed line drawings (I specifically chose places I’d visited) to make my beloved Skagen artwork feel at home.
When you choose your print size you’re also given the option to choose from a white, wooden or black frame (or leave it unframed if you have your own hanging options in mind). In our flat I thought having the images printed then buying our own frames was a great way to save money, but we ended up with terrible quality frames that were impossible to hang and regularly fell off of the wall, so I’m now converted to buying frames from the printing company directly - much easier and they’re usually much better quality. Photowall’s frames were probably the best quality I’ve had delivered which made them much easier to hang, although they’ve replaced the glass with plastic (I personally prefer this - I’m scarred from the frames falling off the wall too many times). If you’re feeling really brave Photowall also offer their artwork (or can print your images) as a wall mural, but personally I can’t commit to something so bold so a gallery wall was definitely the way to go.
If you want to try out Photowall, they've kindly given me a discount code for you:
just type in "theowlet20" to get 20% off your order.
Now we get onto hanging it. If I was sensible I could’ve waited for Jack to get home to have a second pair of hands - I highly recommend getting a friend or family member to help you lay the gallery wall out. Instead of being sensible, I spent 2 1/2 hours putting pictures on the wall, deciding I didn’t quite like the placement, moving the hooks and then filling the holes and marks I’d left behind. Not the smartest use of my time or way to do make a gallery wall but we got there in the end. A lot of people suggest doing the paper hack, where you cut out the size of the frames and arrange it on the wall first. Admittedly this would’ve been a great idea, but with only the essentials unpacked so far I was working with limited resources and winging it was the only option. One thing I will suggest is you measure out the walls BEFORE you order - I just ordered my favourite photos and thought “if they don’t fit I can use them elsewhere”. I genuinely thought I’d ordered too many prints, but as soon as I started hanging them I’d realised the error of my ways. As you can see, one wall is pretty much empty so I now need to order a few more prints to fill the gap.
Final Thoughts -
I wanted my office to be a place that was both practical and inspiring, and I think for the most part I’ve ticked that off. I really wanted some sort of built in storage solution but, at least for now, we can’t afford to do that. Instead I used the old chest of drawers that we were going to sell on Facebook, and I’m keeping an eye out for a trolley on wheels for the equipment I use most often.
One of the most important things for me was for the space to feel bright, cheery and colourful, because that’s what makes me feel creative. The desk chair, sofa and cushions definitely helped, but the gallery wall stepped it up completely and made the space feel completely different. I’ve left one side of the room blank for filming/photography that needs a plain backdrop - ideally that would be decorated too, but I need to balance fun and practicality in my job. I’ve left the useless box completely clear apart from a few bits that I wanted to display, allowing me to easily clear it off to use as a mini photo studio.
Other than removing the irritating useless box (which is arguably less useless now) the only thing I want to change eventually is to add a rug to brighten up the space a little more. I purposefully left a lot of open space to make filming and photography easier, but it feels very bare. I feel like adding a colourful rug with a mainly white or cream base colour would keep the room light but bring it all together.
Other than that, I’m honestly so happy with my office. It’s not 100% my dream office, but it’s probably 95% there and 100% there within the constraints of the room. Since finishing the gallery wall I’ve lost the afternoon slump where I tend to work on the bed after lunch, and instead return to my office. Ok, maybe I sit on the sofa in my office, but at least I’m working in the right room now - baby steps!!!
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