A Well-Deserved Office Makeover

I've told you about my younger sis Sara. In case you don't know her, she's a completely amazing 25 year old girl who owns and runs a coffee shop in our town.

Everyone loves her and she has a sparkly, outgoing personality. She's one of the most compassionate and caring people I've ever met. And she also works like crazy.

Yes, she is one-of-a-kind.

Here we are at the Rachael Ray Show last year:



Her office at the coffee shop was disturbingly dark and cave-like. As well as cluttered and disorganized. And she hated working in it. So she asked if I would help her re-do it.

I decided to recruit some of her friends to help me give her office a much-needed makeover. I called it "Extreme Makeover: Office Edition".

I didn't let Sara help or watch us while we worked. And, she trusted me enough to let me take charge! We did the makeover in one evening, then at the end of the night, we brought her in to see the finished product.

So fun.

Here are some before pics:

See, I told you it was disturbing! Gross brown walls, brown carpet, brown desk, clutter everywhere...yuk!

I wanted the office to reflect Sara and be young, clean, modern, and bright. Here's the AFTER:

We got the main things at Ikea - the desk, both chairs, and the shelf.

Below is a canvas I made for Sara a few years ago of Audrey Hepburn. It's a knock-off of one that Ikea sells.

I found a large corkboard at Goodwill and painted the frame white, then covered it with floral fabric.

I covered clipboards with scrapbook paper. They are useful and fun!

I made her one of my canvases that you can find in my Etsy shop. It's setting on a shelf from Ikea.

Anthropologie aprons and fun coffee-shop hats are her trademark.

The wall art above the corkboard is a canvas that I just covered with a 12x12 piece of scrapbook paper.

The lamp was an old one that I found at Goodwill. I covered the shade with yellow fabric and added some fabric flowers to give it new life.

We spent very little money for the renovation, and now the space is cozy and welcoming, and more importantly, functional!