My $1,600 home office transformation

How I decorated my new office in 3 months for $1,600.

When we moved into our new apartment a few months ago, I was so excited to decorate my office.

It’s a space where I will spend a lot of time, and I also get to make it my own.

(The rest of the apartment decor decisions end up having to be a compromise between J and I because we have such different styles).

While I had the freedom to choose, there was also a restraint. I wanted to spend as little as reasonably possible.

Why? The truth is, while having a beautifully decorated home sounds so wonderful, I’ve never had the stomach to invest significantly in design and decor.

We have two young active children and I am also pretty accident-prone and hard on my things. I can easily envision something (really everything lol) inevitably getting dented, scraped, stained or ruined, and I’d feel ill.

That being said, I still wanted to create a space I loved so I did it as fabulously frugal as I could. Fabulously frugal means you maintain the fabulousness of something while decreasing the cost by honoring what’s most important and letting go of the rest.

Here’s how I decorated my office in 3 months for $1,400.

First, a couple before photos for you:

I know my limits so I started the process by getting some help. I used a service called Havenly where you work with a designer for a flat fee.

You pay $199 (I paid $150 at the time) to work with a designer and you get a complete mockup of the room and links to purchase everything. You also get unlimited chat support and iterations to the room.

You get to choose your designer based on their style, previous work and availability.

Here’s a link to get $50 off Havenly.

You create a room profile with more information about your style and what you are looking for and you can be very specific about budget and which pieces you’d like to keep.

Here’s how Ana, our designer, mocked up my office:

I LOVED it! So I went to work.

Here’s everything I did, what it cost, and then of course, the end result.

$34 - Paint. I painted a set of shelves I already owned gold and white.

$261 - I reframed a piece of art my mom gave me via Framebridge instead of purchasing the new piece in the mockup.

It’s a very special piece for me because it was made from things my mom wore on their wedding day as well as flowers from their wedding cake. I’m so happy it’s the centerpiece of my office!

I asked Ana to incorporate my signed BB King photograph into the design because it’s so meaningful to me. I already had the two other flower photos that I hung on the wall.

$160 - Got the rug the designer chose for me on super sale. I shopped around.

$337 - Worked with the designer to find a peel & stick wall paper alternative because we weren’t ready to commit to the real deal.

$256 - Found a similar office chair to the one she recommended to reduce the cost.

$190 - Pull down window shade from The Fair.

$100 - The West Elm side table was meant for the living room (we got it 2nd hand off Marketplace) but the kids knocked it over too much so I moved it into my office.

$100 - Purchased the vases and a similar pillow.

Things I didn’t spend on:

I skipped the coffee table as this room also serves as a guest room AND I move my desk back when I give talks to have a better background
I kept my original desk and didn’t buy a new one
The lamp was lent by my sister in law until she has a larger apartment

Grand total: $1,588

And here’s the finished product:

A couple important things to note:

Our condo is relatively new and the existing furnishings and the base I had to work with was really lovely
I have a partner who is handier than me. If he weren’t, I would have needed to hire someone to help with the wallpaper as well as hanging the shelves
We had a couple great baseline pieces to work with like our pull out sofa (a Marketplace find we got for $200 when it retailed for thousands!) and my desk which J had before we met
We have a lot of art. It’s something both of our families value and have a lot of knowledge about so we are very lucky to have some very special pieces we really love