Inspiration Office Decor thrifting

I must admit, that a huge part of the inspiration for my new office re-do goes to Orla Kiely. If you read my blog at all you know I LOOOOOVE Orla. I'm not a fashionista by any stretch, but I love her bags like nothing else.  

 After seeing her set, for the recent London Fashion week, I was truly energized to get going.

Here you see Orla's set and later with the models.  I love what she did with touches of color, just a touch, so as not to distract from the clothing.

I used a bit more in my decor because I don't have the beautiful clothing or models running around.

  I wanted to share, how much of my office redecorating was done with thrifted and used items. Hopefully this will inspire you to take the time to hunt and find those things you need to redo your space, save money and the planet at the same time.

Below you can see  how much of my office was thrifted. All the circles show items that I found used, at thrift stores, used furniture stores, and garage sales.

 All of my  "in" baskets, and desk top file holders.  The lateral file that holds my printer, the desk and chair, the bulletin boards, clock, globe  and vintage office  accessories,

The map, the organizer on the white shelf, the bulletin boards below, The book shelf everything on top of the filing cabinets including the lamp and scale (hard to see the scale),  The larger file cabinet, And even the carpet (which had never been used),  were all found second hand.

And I do love my retro clock that I spiced up with some spray paint.

Out of the camera view is a credenza which was also a used office furniture store purchase from several years back.  Of course I have the usual office fodder, copier, credit card machines, phone, printer, computer, calculator fax etc.  Those things are usually beige or gray and nothing can really be done about that.  But now they have some fun retro pieces to brighten them up, which I am loving.

If you are looking for office furniture I highly encourage you to find the used office furniture stores in your area, and take a look. Old furniture is made so much better than the new stuff. It's more durable and has great lines and styles.

You can almost always find exactly what you are looking for and maybe something you weren't  ;)

check out my Etsy store for more vintage office and organizing items.

 

Office redu part deux

Over the years I've tried again to organize, and warm up my office. I've Blogged about it  before, and I've tried to work with what I had.

 I hated my desk, I wasn't crazy about the computer "command center" and the whole things was gray and black cold and boring.
 
 A Few years ago I painted 2 walls and added this "broken clock"  to my wall hoping to solve the problem, but while I liked the "clock" art, I still had the furniture and the cold 80's office feel to deal with.

BEFORE

Why did everything have to be gray and white and black?????

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So I've been on a mission to change it all. I decided to get rid of my yuck desk and work station and have been mulling over different ideas for a few months. It all came together in my head a few weeks ago when I found my fabulous mid century desk.  Now computer and work desk are one, and I'm no longer constantly having to twist my body at a right angle to go from computer to desk.  Instead of the "command center" I have shelves, and propped my printer onto a thrifted lateral file I picked up at a used office furniture store, that has also given me ample storage.

Almost all the desk accessories were thrifted,  Lamp, stapler file holders pen holder, and even the yellow tape dispenser were all found at garage sales.

The shelves work great and I was able to accessorize them with some of my ampersand collection as well as other vintage items, and of course, the stuff I need to actually get my work done.

 This is, after all, a very busy office. Bills getting paid, orders getting taken etc.

There are only a few items on these shelves that are not actually used for business.  The globe, the magnifying glass on stand, and the 2 small black vintage office machines, and the books they are sitting on,  that you can barely see on the lower right shelf.

For reasons of thrift, I'm keeping the gray filing cabinets.  To add some color over here, I hung an old school map and brought in any office product I could find that had color. 

 For my binders I brought in an old encyclopedia book shelf, which also gives me a place to plop my big bag that I carry stuff to and from work in.

  The white organizer will soon be painted.  

I don't usually like to have things that don't have a purpose, lying around, but on top of the filing cabinet there are actually a few display only items.  The orange book and books in front of it are there for color as is the green drawer thing next to them.  The check embosser is just for show and I don't really NEED a lamp there, but It's nice to have.  The in baskets, and scale are used often.

 I'm actually looking forward to my work days  now :)  And the organization overhaul has been working out great.

In the next post you'll see exactly which items were thrifted, You'll be surprised.

Junky Photo display

It may seem strange,with as much as I love using vintage frames in my decor that I don't necessarily like having my photos in frames. I really love using unusual items to display photographs. 

Click some photos and links to go to similar items in my etsy store.

This this display on a shelf in my home office.  I've used a store sign holder,  wooden photo film holders

 Even music holders and flower frogs, but not regular frames.

This fun item is for enlarging prints in a dark room. The black bars are moveable so you can add that white border around the print.  You move them along those bars on the side. I love the wood frame and the glass in front makes it perfect for photos.

Or these fabulous items, used to hold film in vintage field cameras.  Nice wooden frames as well.

Even this garden sign would be great as a photo frame.

I've even propped photos up in items like this for display.

This is another one of those enlarger mattes for darkroom developing.  It has 2 sides and is perfect for larger photos.

Do you prefer regular frames or unusual ways to display your photos?