Room Reveal: Spare room turned home office

So many of us have spare rooms that cost us thousands of pounds to get. One study suggests that an extra bedroom can add up to 15 per cent to the value of your home, especially if it's a loft conversion with an en suite bathroom. In the north, adding a new bedroom could increase the value of your home by as much as 46%. So why do larger homes tend to have so much unused space?

And it is not just me. If you own a home outside London, chances are you have a spare room that becomes the sum of all shame. In my home, surprisingly, this title goes to the guest bedroom, which serves better as a dumping ground for all clean but yet to be ironed clothes, because, you know, there is a bed and it calls out for clothes to be spread freely over it.

But let's get back to the spare bedroom. This is what we started with, it's an average sized room, with some kind of large recess in the wall, that happened to fit two large PAX wardrobes perfectly. It has served occasionally as an additional guest bedroom but mostly it is a room that we don't even air that much, it sees no foot traffic at all. Oh and yes these are indeed IKEA wardrobes that have wallpaper on them, an easy and cheap DIY that has lasted years.

• Try my IKEA PAX wallpaper hack

Disclosure: This post contains a link to a gifted product - the HAG CAPISCO Puls 8020 chair.

Fast forward to the start of secondary school however and somehow this set up in the kid's room just didn't seem to be great. There simply was not enough storage to get the 11 year old organised in the way we wanted him to.

Changes we made to this bedroom later on, to accomodate the reading during the last two years of primary school showed us that there was still a lot of room for improvement and that we were not using the space correctly. We could make a lot of changes in here, but we would need to call in a joiner and custom build storage and a desk to make this room great.

That was not an option due to cost.

At some point I even thought we should remove part of the wall to the left of the bed and unite this bedroom with the spare bedroom, to create one large play and work room (with one access point / door completely replaced with anew wall). Again that seemed excessive from a cost perspective and it would also de-value the house by losing one bedroom.

In the end, logic prevailed and we just gave the spare bedroom a new lease of life.

Our inspiration

We looked up for projects that we liked on Pinterest and saved the ones that resonated the most with our aesthetic, in a secret mood board. our style could be summarised as follows:

• Industrial vibes

• One dark wall

• Pops of mustard yellow

• Wall-hung Storage

• A long working surface

What we did:

• The wardrobes stayed put and with their current wallpaper on - for the time being!

• We painted the wall behind the desk in Dulux Cobalt Night. I had this mixed in Soft Sheen and it took 3 coats to get a good consistent colour. In comparison, Little Greene or Farrow and Ball need only two coats for a deep even colour.

• We moved 2x IKEA MICKE desks from my office and from the kid's room in here to create a longer working surface, to accomodate the computer screen and writing area.

• We moved the IKEA Billy bookcase from my office for extra storage and to create a reading nook.

• We added the IKEA EKET wall shelves about the desk.

• We moved the orange floor lamp (Made.com) from the kid's room here, together with a garden bean bag that would otherwise be stored in our shed throughout winter. This way we created a reading nook that is cosy and comfortable.

• We added a new office chair that was gifted by FLOKK - this is the HAG CAPISCO Puls 8020 chair with extra cushion for comfort. It is completely configurable in terms of colour, headrest and footrest and it is very very comfortable. You can also sit back to front which I love!

Check here for the details on how the paint colour went on, what it looked like after the first coat of colour and how we put the EKET shelves on the wall.

The Reveal

Theme wall colour

After a very happy four years with my office painted in Farrow & Ball's Railings, I knew that the wall behind the desk needed to be painted in a delicious dark colour. A dark background helps focus and so looking at a number of paint colours I decided to have some COBALT NIGHT mixed in soft sheen at my local Homebase.

COBALT NIGHT is also included in the 2021 Dulux colour palettes and specifically the Earth Palette.

My next mini-challenge is to sort out the reading nook - styling and faffing, the fun stuff!

If you like what you saw - share it on your social and PIN it on your Pinterest moodboard!