Small Home Office Reno - Opinions Please!


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Old 05-04-10, 04:38 AM
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Small Home Office Reno - Opinions Please!

So I'm going to renovate my mum's office for mother's day, which will be late, but hey better late than never eh?

Here's an image of my proposed design so far:
*******

The room is about 2.2m square, and the ceiling slopes up to one corner, so two of the walls are square and two are trapezoids. The walls are fibro, and the plan was to remove the vertical strips and fill/sand the joints, and leave the main horizontal joint but replace the strip with a decorative one (so far the idea is one with a leaf design pressed into it).

As the room is small I'm going to try and build in a corner desk and lots of shelves with no legs, to keep the floor as free as possible. Will cut a cedar blind to ft the window, and the shelves and desk will be a laminate or laquered wood to match the bind's colour (orange-brown-gold). Mum wants purple, so that's the base for the colour palette I have to work with.

You can see by the picture I tried to go with muted colours except for the ceiling, but I'm tempted to have that white anyway, and leave strong purples for objects in the room like a vase, storage boxes, photo frames, etc.

Would appreciate any comments on my design, as well as ideas. My parents are country folks so not going for modern look - just clean and stylish.

Cheers
Sam
 

Last edited by Shadeladie; 05-04-10 at 06:38 AM. Reason: Link removed
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Old 05-04-10, 06:39 AM
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Your link is asking to be opened by a program. Please upload your image to a picture site, such as Photobucket, then add the link. Thank you.
 
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Old 05-04-10, 03:22 PM
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Sorry fixed the link to the image:
 
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Old 05-04-10, 04:33 PM
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Hi symean,

In order to provide a soft work environment I'd go with neutral colors, from beige to soft green

Paint (ref. Sherwin Williams catalog)
Realistic Beige (SW 6078)
Familiar Beige (SW 6093)
Livable Green (SW 6176)
Rainwashed (SW 6211)
 
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Old 05-04-10, 05:13 PM
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Originally Posted by pmgca
Hi symean,

In order to provide a soft work environment I'd go with neutral colors, from beige to soft green

Paint (ref. Sherwin Williams catalog)
Realistic Beige (SW 6078)
Familiar Beige (SW 6093)
Livable Green (SW 6176)
Rainwashed (SW 6211)
Nice colours, but purple has to be the colour of choice. Might try and tone it down but stay with a purple tint instead of green...
 
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Old 05-04-10, 07:59 PM
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Of course, is your choice, however, I don't recommend purple for a room to be used as office and / or computer work
 
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Old 05-04-10, 10:03 PM
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Okay here goes my suggestions; do not replace the horizontal strip with a decorative one. Why draw your eye to that line, that's my question?
What is on the wall that is parallel with the door? It is a better suggestion to use an accent wall for color, especially one like purple (plum), which personally is my favorite. You may need some bookcases or such to anchor the floor. By floating the desk and shelves, what will be on the floor? It may end up being too airy. Just a thought. Also, if you are using the blind color as a contrast, I suggest you get a color wheel and find the purple you will be using and find the opposite color for the blind on the wheel. Don't assume a color will work without checking it against the paint. Good Luck.
 
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Old 05-05-10, 01:57 AM
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pmgca:

The colour is not my choice actually, Mum has always wanted the room some shade of purple, so that's what I have to work with I wouldn't have gone with that colour, but that's my brief.

chilly.az.girl:

The decorative strip idea came about because the horizontal gap between the fibro sheets is quite wide and rough...whereas the vertical ones are tight and neat and thus quick and easy to fill in. I need to keep the project short hence the idea to just replacing the horizontal strip with something more attractive.

The window is on the opposite wall from the door. Will think about using the accent colour on one wall, they have done that in several other rooms here already.

Good point about anchoring the floor...There was going to be some white woven baskets with a purple lining on the floor for storage, but I might think about making the lower shelves floor-standing, and the higher ones floating...maybe even a tall narrow one in one corner.

Thanks
Sam
 
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Old 05-06-10, 09:11 PM
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great! What about using decorative wood molding instead of a strip, again, the style of the wood would be seen, not the decoration of the strip. Not sure if you are painting one color as wainscot and another above, if so, you can paint the wood molding the bottom color.

Good Luck.
 
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Old 05-08-10, 01:06 AM
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what's software that can for make that picture?
 
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Old 05-08-10, 03:41 AM
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Originally Posted by aandamar
what's software that can for make that picture?
I just used Adobe Illustrator, not really the ideal tool but it helped me visualize the idea.
 
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Old 05-08-10, 04:06 AM
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Originally Posted by chilly.az.girl
great! What about using decorative wood molding instead of a strip, again, the style of the wood would be seen, not the decoration of the strip. Not sure if you are painting one color as wainscot and another above, if so, you can paint the wood molding the bottom color.

Good Luck.
Mum liked the decorated strip when she saw it in the hardware here, it's very 'her'. Plus it's only 10mm thick so won't intrude into the already small room much at all. The pressed 'vine' design on the strip wouldn't be a different colour, the idea was to just paint the whole thing gloss white like the door frame and skirting. I might look at moulding though, as long as I can find something very thin that would be nice.

I was going to make the lower half of the wall a different colour, mum wants purple but I'm starting to think that might be a bit much for the whole lower part. Today I saw a picture of some lavender which gave me the idea of doing the lower part a very faint silver green (like pmgca's suggestion for 'Livable Green') and having a narrower strip above that, between the height of the desk and the moulding/decorative strip a purple colour. I dunno...might need to see if I can find some pics online of that colour combination to see how it might work
 
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Old 05-08-10, 06:23 AM
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Hi symean,

If you tel me the exact colors you wish to see together, I will be glad to create an image
 
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Old 05-09-10, 12:13 AM
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symean, don't freak out about the purple. If you find a soft color she likes, that will work well. Consider a creamy color for the upper wall. No matter what color you both chose, remember to coordinate the hues, ie., purple with red hue, cream with red.

 
 

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