Suzanne’s Dining Room/Home Office – Pick My Presto

…and while we’re on the subject of Suzanne, I put together a presto change-o picture for her today, and thought I’d share it here too, in case you might be in the market for a similar kind of inspiration.

Did I tell you that she and her husband (Billy) bought Two-Story Blue?

Yep. It went back on the market a year after the previous owner bought it because he got a job in another state. (You remember the previous owner, right? The one who we were bidding against when we tried to buy it in 2012!) Well, Suzanne and the fam moved in a few months ago, and I cannot tell you how much we’ve enjoyed having them as neighbors. Now I reeeeally know why we weren’t meant to buy that house! 😀

Anywho, they’ve been trying to decide how to lay out the area next to their living room, so I thought I’d take a stab at creating an inspirational photo drawing in Photoshop for them. Here’s what the space looks like now:

They want to use it as a dining room that doubles as a home office/home work area, but because it’s connected to their living room, they don’t necessarily want it to look like a home office/home work area all the time. They’d also like to be able to store a lot of things that currently don’t have a dedicated home in this room.

So here’s what I came up with, and keep in mind, this is just one of a million different ideas because ya gotta start somewhere, and the sky is the limit with this space! First, I popped in a round dining table and four chairs. Next, I swapped the kitchen door with an old door that looks just like the one Billy found a while back and is planning to install there. (Billy- that thing is going to look so cool!) After that, I added a rug, hanging light fixture, and tall drapes to add some warmth and ambience to the space. (Pops of black would be great too, Suzanne!)

Now, let’s peel away those layers and talk about what’s going on behind them. You know I’m all about the built-ins, baby! 😀

They would provide the perfect place to hide the office, and whatever else they want to store inside, and there are SO many options with something like this. For instance, if they decided they didn’t need quite that much closed storage, they could ditch some of the doors and do open shelving. If they dug the doors, but wanted to add more dimension, they could use some doors with glass fronts. If they wanted a couple of drawers mixed in there, they could totally do that too. Like I said, the possibilities are endless with this kind of thing.

Here’s a picture of it with the doors open:

It’s kind of hard to tell from the straight-on view, but I’m picturing the center portion (where the computer desk is) sticking out a little farther than the cabinets on either side of it, and then the cabinet over the kitchen door would be step back from the cabinets around the computer desk. That way, the whole unit would have dimension. It could also be built so that the whole thing is flat across the front. Either way, I think floor-to-ceiling cabinetry would be a great way to put that (currently not very hardworking) wall to work. It would also be cool if the doors (that hide the computer desk) could open and slide straight back in, and completely out of the way- kind of like pocket doors. That, or use hinges that allow the doors to open all the way, so they could lay flat against the cabinets on either side. They could turn one of the dining chairs around and use it as a desk chair, or keep their current desk chair nearby and pull it over when they need to use the computer.

(And, Billy, if y’all went with a flat front (instead of cabinets that are different depths) you might even be able to work that rolling library ladder you’ve always wanted into the plan! 😉 )

This may or may not be what they had in mind, but hopefully it helps to get their creative gears a’turnin’. Off to see if any of my walls could be working any harder…

🙂

PS- Interested in learning how to “presto change-o” pictures of your place? Check out my Room Makeover class over at ShootFlyShoot.com!