So the office is finished and we can now move hubby from the lounge to the office space. Bless him, he has been working his IT job every weekday from the lounge dining table, not practical especially with me walking in on his conference calls and my star performance of spilling a whole glass of coke whilst sitting next to him when he was on his weekly well-being check in with the big boss. He had to explain that his accident prone wife just spilt her coke everywhere on her lap and her laptop. A further explanation was required that it was the soft drink coke and not cocaine which led to an awkward silence.

This room was probably the room that needed the least amount of work thank goodness (I’m so tired!). We started by filling small holes in walls with filler then painted the walls and ceiling with white paint. Next was cleaning up the tiles inset by the window. We then fixed the broken floor tiles, luckily we found a few spare tiles in the workshop and purchased a tile cutter. Then we had a huge task of regrouting the floor tiles, there is more info on my DIY project post but this was such a difficult job that we had to do twice as we used out of date grout – long story. We removed a weird lamp that was fixed to the wall and there is a huge built in solid wooden desk and cupboard as well as a free standing corner unit which we primed and painted grey and white. I originally painted the desk grey and white but decided I preferred the grey so we painted all of the drawers grey. We decided to recycle the existing furniture for now as removing it would result in us having to fix part of the wall and floor tiles as it’s all built in. We will upgrade once we have sorted finances and have spare money, maybe in a year or two.

We purchased a blind for the window and installed it. We also replaced the ceiling light as it was cracked, hanging off the ceiling and an accident waiting to happen. We managed to do this without electrocuting ourselves which is a bonus (ha ha). Then it was just a case of buying accessories including a floor rug from Casa store. All we need to buy now is a sofa bed and a few accessories to add a splash of colour. I don’t particularly like accessories that don’t do anything and just gather dust (unless it’s a lucky waving cat – ha ha) e.g. those ‘Home’ signs or the chavvy ‘Live, laugh, love/dance in the rain’ plaques – apologies if you have this on your wall, save your last dance in the rain for me (ha ha). I like stuff and ornaments that have dual purposes like vases and picture frames. We purchased a great cork world map notice board with cute little country map pins that will come in handy. We also need some epic wall art but I’m waiting to travel to Porto for this, we have our eye on something special.

The downside to having hubby in the office is it is not within shouting distance of the upper house or garden so I need to either practice my shouting skills and increase my volume or go fight it solo when I meet a snakey or require hubby’s assistance. I think I will miss him being in the main house but it’s great to have a designated area separate for his work as sometimes I am sat in the same room whilst he is on conference call team meetings as as well as spilling soft drinks I occasionally can’t help but join in like when big boss says “Does anyone have any questions?” I put my hand up then realise I’m not at work, it’s not my job and they ain’t my people! (ha ha).

Hubby even has an office with a view! My last job back in Bristol was in a large shared office with no external windows so you never got any fresh air or got to see any natural daylight, great for vampires but shit for humans. Luckily for me I spent quite a lot of my time driving to different centres or appointments but the environment was very depressing and not great for my health and wellbeing.

Before photo:

Work in progress photos:

Final touches

After photos:

Office with a view

Anyone want a free hug?