Our Updated Home Office

As many of you know, we sold our cute “modern farmhouse” late last year and moved into a lovely little cottage rental, while we look for a new home. And since we’ve moved, I thought why not share our updated home office studio with you all.

Renting can be frustrating and I know this all too well because I rented for 13 years until we bought our first home in 2012! Trying to make a rental home feel like your own can be really challenging and frustrating. But, the part I love, is it forces you to think outside the box and make things work, and usually on a tight budget because you don’t exactly want to spend a lot of money on someone else’s investment!

Thankfully at our new cottage, we have this spare area/sunroom that has beautiful big windows & doors, but no blinds, no doors (as it leads on to a bathroom/laundry), and a cold concrete floor. We really needed an office / studio space, and I knew once we put down our heavy woolen Pottery Barn rug and office desk, it would be a lovely place to work and do my photography.

As luck would have it, I’d been holding on to an old sheer curtain from our first home that works perfectly on one side of the room for privacy. It also blocks out some of the harsh afternoon sun which is NOT ideal for photography!

While it’s not the most perfect scenario, nor the most beautiful, it functions really well. This room is ideal for me to do my food and flatlay shots, with soft diffused light coming through. Shots like this one below:

I also did a recent food shoot in this space with a client and everything went brilliantly! We were able to shoot late into the afternoon because of all the natural light pouring in.

You can see the original blog post from when we first did our home office makeover with Pottery Barn here. Although, you might notice one big change; the chair!

I actually had a custom slipcover made for the chair using a beautiful linen tablecloth that I bought myself for Christmas. Yep, I know, it seems bizarre to use a tablecloth as fabric for a chair cover, but it’s such a stunning french linen and the soft teal blue and white print just sang to me, so I knew I wanted to use it for this chair.

I particularly love being able to look out into the garden and watch the kids playing. I’m really looking forward to summer when we can swing open all the doors again!

So, while our new home office isn’t perfect, it’s working very well for us, and is such a lovely space to be in (when it’s tidy! ha). And when you’re in a rental, it’s all about making things work the best you can, without spending too much money or doing anything too permanent.

Sources:

Lamp

Desk

Chair (with a custom slipcover over the top)

Ceramics by my friend, Ali F Made It.

Rug

Candle

Backyard Hammock

Nicki xo