Before and After: A Whiteboard Mural Makes This Creative Office an Organized Dream
Even though Brianna works from home, she lacked a dedicated home office to spur her creativity. The graphic designer-slash-blogger says this “less-than-visually inspiring office was hazardous to my occupational health. It’s pretty hard to be creative in a virtual flop house.” (See that mattress on the wall? That’s not staged—that’s how the room always looked!)
Brianna and her husband built a dedicated guest bedroom so she could create the office of her dreams. She started by repurposing her existing IKEA desktop and some storage cubes to create a desk-console combo. For maximum inspiration, she moved the desk to face her yard.
But the genius of Brianna’s office goes well beyond shifting furniture around. “I have a tendency toward distraction, so I knew I needed to come up with a way to have all my goals, tasks, and general to-dos in my face at all times without feeling ominous,” she says. Her solution started with a vertical filing system that is “so simple, but so life-changing.”
Her clipboard grid isn’t just visually beautiful: It also keeps her organized. She “groups like documents, clips them together, hangs on wall, grabs as needed, and recycles when complete.”
The next step of her reorganization campaign is the room’s coup de gras: a wall mural transformed into a whiteboard. Brianna printed her custom, watercolor-inspired artwork at Society6 and covered it with three “generous” coats of clear whiteboard paint. After five days of curing, she had her end result—”a giant surface for impromptu brainstorming, writing down weekly and monthly goals, taking notes while pacing on conference calls, or sketching website wireframes. I think the idea is really clever and I’ve never seen anything quite like it. Plus, having a visual reminder that I still create art when I am neck deep in designing data sheets is nice.”
Ready to embark on your own renovation? “Don’t be afraid to experiment,” Brianna advises. “If you come up with an idea that excites you, go for it.”
Thanks for sharing, Brianna!