How To Get The Most Out Of Your Space
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Our “Before” Home Office Space
If you’ve made it to our MMDH blog for the first time today [WELCOME!] I’m walking you through the process of designing our home office in very real-time. If you missed post one or post two, take a look back 👈 before you keep reading here.
It’s wild that nearly every. single. day. something gets in the way of spending time on my own home projects. You know, things like work, kids, life… the things that continuously knock on the door for immediate attention.
Just me?!
It turns out my home furnishing projects have not been knocking hard enough, and I’m willing to bet you are in a similar boat. Even if you have an empty room staring you down; hand me down furniture that has seen better days; OR even the best furniture you’ve ever purchased that’s on its 15th year of worn-down life, sometimes the status quo takes a front seat when all else seems to be more important.
Well, I’ve hit the point that I’m ready to make my home design goals a top priority. Whoooo’s coming with me???
Planning x Rearranging
You might guess that as a designer, this place does not stay super stagnant for a long period of time. I’ve never been one to buy support pieces of furniture for one specific space. It’s key to buy furnishings that feel cohesive with your entire home and could be picked up and moved into a different room at any time.
As I started to process our ideal home office space plan, we started rearranging the next level. Getting a feel for pieces we wanted to keep, items we could utilize in a different space [ie: our once dining room console table, then office console table, is now our foyer console table 👆… check out that back story here]… and then the most fun part, pieces that we could sell and refresh with a new spec!
While every furnishing project needs a space plan to get a room as thoughtfully processed as possible, rearranging furnishings you already own is an incredible way to get a sense of real-life scale. Even if you know you will be swapping out items completely, there is nothing better than having a real “sample” of an existing piece to determine the best size fresh piece you need for your space.
A Wish List Leads To A Plan
To get a solid space plan, you need a wish list. When I am kicking off any client project, we start with a “program”, a Q&A for what the space needs to accommodate when all is said and done. This is a wish list of needs/wants/would not be spending money on this project if I can’t get this out of it ✔️
A program is a critical step of the design process and always leads to a plan. Both of these steps are often missed or brushed over quickly by even the savviest design-ready homeowners. I love when students and clients light up as they work through their project wish lists. As we hone into the needs of any space, a plan starts to thoughtfully and organically take shape.
My Home Office Wish List
For our MMDH home office project, our wish list seemed fairly straightforward… until we got all players involved 🤩 Not only is documenting your goals for any space a critical step but involving every “end-user” in the conversation is the only way to get the absolute most out of your space!
Here is our collective wish list:
- A millwork focal point wall around the fireplace (the first thing you see as you walk in the front door)
- A TV above the fireplace for conferencing (must budget for a Frame for obvious reasons)
- Inspo wall (dedicate an entire wall to inspiration up in front of us daily)
- Calendar wall (dedicate and entire wall to next steps up in front of us daily)
- Lighting (holy smokes, it’s hard to see in here after 4pm in the winter!)
- A family style table for two, in lieu of separate desks (dual purpose for entertaining and officing)
- Bookshelves (I live for displaying & styling my collections, so this bullet point is 1000% for me)
- Library storage shelves (momma collects a lot of samples over here!)
- A bar (1000% from the host with the most of the house – not me – albeit a very practical add)
- Layout space on. the. floor. (must be able to make a sample mess to bring it all together… bonus for our almost 8-year-old gymnast’s impromptu cartwheels)
That’ll do it… our plan requirements are in place and thought through via mindset shifts, inspo, rearranging, and processing. Now to getting it all on paper! I like to reference this scaled planning process as the “measure twice, purchase once” step that waves buh bye 👋 to that ever-growing return pile!
Moving In The Right Direction
If you are ready to join me on your home design journey, click right here, to get your sign-up on! Learn all about what our digital course and community have to offer while the getting is good.
If you aren’t quite ready to take the full leap into our course community with me, we’ve got all sorts of other design guidance for you and your design-ready friends to take advantage of first 😉
Check out our link below for next steps 👇
xo,
If you‘re looking for more tips for your home design projects, check out these posts:
The Most Common Error In Furniture Placement
SHOP THE MMDH LOOK
