HOME OFFICES

MOVING THE OFFICE HOME

We are now two years behind the trend on color trends according to Pantone, the guru of color prophecies. We've skipped past emerald and are holding onto our reservations about the worthiness of orchid. We're clearly still in love with Tangerine. Once I was able to read the writing on the wall and realize our office/atelier on East Wilson was never going to be profitable moving the office into our home was the inevitable result. Renting an apartment in New York made the thought of no longer having a professional hook in Madison to hang my hat on away from the room where I laid my head to sleep a whole lot more palatable.

The concept for the office was to have a space that both of us could use as a work a space but that would also double as a guest room if we ever needed it and as it turns out we did with a house full of guests for Thanksgiving. The couch is from CB2 and folds out into a queen size bed. It's been a conflict of "you say potato and I say patattah" when it comes to the color. Rick insists it's orange while I see it as red. You can be the judge. The wall cabinets are orange and on this color assessment we both can agree The cabinets came from IKEA and the directions to put them together came from somewhere in Siberia written by someone whose native language is no longer spoken by any living human.

I found the Wisconsin pennant many years ago in an antique store I'm sure no longer exists. I had always wanted to have it framed but had never gotten around to it. With my ill-gotten gains from my winnings on several football pools this season I finally decided it was time.

The room, itself, had been a bedroom with a built-in closet where the sofa now sits. When we had it removed it meant the walls would need to be repaired and painted. What we opted for was to have or magician of a contractor (please call for referrals, Mark is great) trowel on a coat of plaster leaving the trowel lines in place and then letting the color of the plaster be the color of the walls, a soft almost buttery white with a tasty hint of almond.
A row of orange file cabinets also from CB2 (we know how to shop cheap) sit patiently waiting for us to get our act together and begin filing them with the three years of unsorted paperwork we keep procrastinating about. The blinds are a custom color with pale almost peach colored tapes. I assume your all getting the color theme here.

The bone of contention has been the desk, a remnant from our store made from two metal sawhorses from William-Sonoma Home and a top we built, covered with burlap that we then painted with what seemed like fifty coats of grey and then studded the sides with upholstery nailheads. To make it usable as a desk we had a sheet of glass cut to top the thing off. Its intention was to be a partner's desk with one of us on one side and the other, well on the other side. We set two orange CB2 glider chairs on either side with the misconception that either of us could  work on fifteen inches of desktop space , not a doable solution. Rick ended up at the desk and I ended up out on the kitchen counter a designer at sea with only a t-square for a paddle.

Ultimately I muscled my way back into the office by claiming the work counter where we were to do our drafting as my desk. Since I do most of the drafting (well all of the drafting) it was a fair trade.
Now I'm nestled in between and under our book and resource wall. This was a jury-rigged effort combining Billy bookcases from IKEA, rejected white lacquer Lee bedside tables from our furniture line elevated on stands again purchased from IKEA and shelves from Home Depot. With any office you can never have enough storage space or work surfaces but for an office in a space the size of a middle child's bedroom we feel we did a pretty good job.

THE GALLERY

Frank Lloyd Wright at Taliesin, 1937
William Hedrich, photographer