So yesterday I finally broke down and shared our big news with you! We bought a new house!

Well, we bought an old house. A really old house. We aren’t actually sure on the date but we are estimating that it was built around 1875. The joy of these old places is you never really know. But we love our new, old house!

It sits in the best little town, (I mean little, little), in one of the most beautiful areas in the North East. It’s basically our dream house. Although I’ll admit that when we started looking that is not at all what we were looking for. But after our short time here we have come to love it, even our little one says at least once a week how she wants to stay here forever. As a military family, that is both comforting, and very scary. Especially since we still have some time before we are once again permanent residents.But for now, here we are. In our amazing little town, in our wonderful new house and now it’s time to start making it our own.

As you can imagine moving into a new house comes with all sorts of fun challenges and for me, at least this time, was figuring out what project to tackle first. There are so many places and things to do that narrowing down the list and focusing on just one has been almost impossible.

But after a lot of thought and a deep seeded hatred for our red 70’s paneling I have finally decided to make over our second floor landing into a new builtin office for me. Now all I needed was a little motivation to get my project started, and that is where my good friend Stephanie at Casa Watkins Living comes in.

See every year she gets a bunch of us together and challenges us to makeover one room during the month of January. Kind of a get the new year started off right sort of thing. Its quickly become one of my favorite times of the year as this will be my third, yes third year in a row participating!

Seriously though, I love participating with these girls! They are the best! Not only are the all super sweet and helpful to work with, they always come up with some of the most amazing designs!

Domicile 37 // House Homemade // Iris Nacole // Monica Wants It // Jeweled Interiors

Pocketful of Posies // This Is Our Bliss // Up To Date Interiors

Last year I made over my master bedroom and the year before I gave our tired 1980’s living room some much needed life. I truly loved the way both rooms came together into amazing new spaces.

Now getting back to this years New Year, New Room Challenge: Creating a Creative Office, this is what the space looked like when we bought the house. Not tooooo bad right? Ahh, that nice over brightened real estate photo that says “Oh yeah, I’m red, not your favorite, but you could totally live with me…. At least for a little while.”

But this is much closer to reality. And honestly even this is too bright and clean looking for the actual space. It is a soul sucking, light killing red that haunts my dreams and dampens my days. Literally walking upstairs to this makes me sad. every. single. time.

Not to mention that there is just no storage for an actual office, leaving it a constant cluttered mess. Something I am really hoping to rectify with this makeover. By adding some pretty builtin bookcases and a desk that has more than 2 pencil drawers.

With a new house, a new year, and a new local, comes a little adjustment to my style. After all I do truly believe that each house has its own personality. A personality that should be honored and inspired into its greatest possible design. This house is or at least once was, before someone in the 70’s stripped away all its original features, was an Italianate. Classic in style and grace with bold masculine features and elegant feminine details. Something I really hope to bring back into the home. So I am going for the clean dressed up version of Modern Traditional that really speaks to our homes classic architecture and my ever growing need for simplicity.

Sounds simple enough right? Hahahaha. The challenge with this particular space is that the red paneling runs up the stairs from the main entry and all around the traditional Victorian 2nd floor landing. So once I start pulling off paneling, I’m going to have pull it ALL off. Two floors of 12 ft ceilings and 4 walls of natural light butchering red. Not to mention all the cracked and damaged plaster that is sure to be lying in wait underneath. Kind of makes you nervous doesn’t it? Owning an old home isn’t for the faint of heart and this girl sure isn’t.

• Removing all the awful red paneling
• Repair the plaster underneath
• Move around and remove some very weird light/outlet choices, add a few more of each, in the appropriate place of course.
• Build a builtin desk and book case
• Fresh paint
• Crown molding
• And decorate!

Do you think we can get it all done in 4 weeks????

I’ll be honest with you, it’s going to be tough. I see plenty of late night wall scraping sessions in my near future. But one thing I know for sure, anything is better than 70’s red paneling!

Thank you for stopping by to check out my New Year New Room Creating a Creative Office Design Plan! Are you working on any New Year New Room changes? If so we’d love to see them in the link up below! And don’t forget to check back each Tuesday in January to see our progress! I can’t wait to share this amazing transformation with you!

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