Modern Chinoiserie Home Office Reveal!

This post has been a long time coming! Months ago, I introduced you to my home office and shared the vision and the initial plans. Of course, I expected this project to take 4-6 weeks, and it came in at 13 weeks. Most of this was waiting on items to come in, so thank you for your patience.

Before jumping into the reveal, I want to quickly thank the brands who partnered with me on this project: Tempaper, Zartiques, and Loom Decor. Thank you for supporting the brands that allow me to create spaces that I can share with you. All opinions are my own.

Let’s remember where we started:

Oof. And then we stripped the trim and the room in order to refinish the floors (more details on that process here):

And here she is, looking so much prettier, more sophisticated, and immensely more functional.

The Wallpaper & Paint

The inspiration for this space was a modern, fresh take on chinoiserie, and from the very beginning I had this vision of a mural on the wall that’s most visible from the hallway. Once I stumbled upon the Tempaper Chinoiserie removable wallpaper collection, I instantly knew that one of their many gorgeous self-adhesive and removable wallpaper murals would be absolutely perfect. I wanted to continue the body colour onto the walls of the room to envelope the space and allow the room to expand visually, so that narrowed my focus Garden wallpaper in Metallic Champagne. When I took the sample with me to Farrow and Ball to source some paint samples for the rest of the walls, the store associates were genuinely shocked that the wallpaper was 1) not hand-painted and 2) removable, because the printing and paper quality is that good.

The Chinoiserie removable wallpaper collection at Tempaper is custom printed to fit your space, so that the pattern can scale to the full height and width of your walls. Working with the printing team was super simple and just required sending over the measurements of the wall and a photo of the actual wall in the room. I received a proof of the design, and once I signed off on it, a few weeks later the printed panels arrived, each with a number that corresponded to it’s placement on the wall.

I’m going to do a follow-up post detailing the process of hanging the paper, but all in all, it was pretty straightforward and simple for Cory and I to do on a weekend morning, and looks incredible. I had lots of anxiety over whether we’d be able to hang the paper ourselves and I honestly had nothing to worry about. We remarked afterwards that we wish every project we tackled went as smoothly as this one, since in less than two hours the space was totally transformed, the removable wallpaper was hung without any frustration at all, and there was hardly any mess to clean up besides the paper backing.

A few final words on the Chinoiserie wallpaper: We love that it’s the star of the space and that it pulls the whole room together. The metallic finish throws the light around beautifully and elevates the room. I absolutely love the traditional element the chinoiserie pattern brings to the space contrasted with more modern light fixtures and desk chair. All in all, we couldn’t be happier.

We painted the walls Farrow & Ball Ammonite in the Estate Emulsion finish and absolutely love how this warm grey unifies the trim, the walls and the ceiling. It blends pretty perfectly into the paper at the edges in most lighting conditions (sometimes when the light is pouring into the room in the afternoons the difference in shade gets more significant), which is about as much as I ever could have hoped.

The Rug

As always, I gravitated towards a vintage rug for this room. I worked with Raana at Zartiques to source this gorgeous vintage Persian rug. After a number of hours spent on failed searches on the standard online marketplaces for a rug in the correct size for the room, Raana checked her inventory of 900+ one of a kind vintage rugs and immediately found me this perfectly sized pink and blue beauty. Not only is the size exactly right for the space, it’s worn in just right so that it brings the right amount of patina and gravitas to the room. In short, I’m obsessed and can’t stop recommending Zartiques.

The Furniture

Let’s start with the desk. My obsession with this desk is beyond next level. She’s a 19th century Chinese Elmwood desk that’s been stripped down to the raw wood to reveal this incredible craftsmanship. This style of furniture construction used no nails or screws, so these wooden dowels (visible on the front of the desk above the drawers) are used throughout to hold the desk together. It’s an incredible piece of craftsmanship and history that brings me so much joy to work at. I found this desk on a local online auction and kept refreshing the page several times a day for two weeks. I then got into a bidding war, but alas, now she’s in my office and I couldn’t be more thrilled to be writing this post while sitting at her. While the desk isn’t small, the open space underneath allows it to feel airy and light.

I searched high and low for a chic office desk that didn’t have castors (I didn’t want wheels anywhere near my freshly refinished floors!), or arms, and looked fabulous. This CB2 desk chair is beyond perfect and is so supportive and comfortable. Plus that brass edge detail and rivets add a very special touch.

The console along the left wall is our former media cabinet from our living room that we added an extra unit and a few drawers to. It’s the IKEA Besta unit and it really opens up the space by being so low to the ground, plus it adds SO much extra storage. This room was previously bursting with camera gear, fabric, art supplies, stationary, etc. and now we have room to spare in the closet.

Also on this wall I added two of these super inexpensive corkboards (it’s all about the high-low!), a vintage dish with brass thumb tacks, a sculptural planter, a vintage bust, and a candle in a vintage silver tray.

On the other side of the room, I brought upstairs the vintage Louis chair that we reupholstered last year in Miles Redd’s Deconstructed Stripe for Schumacher. I pulled the blue from the wallpaper across to this side of the room with this blue velvet lumbar from H&M Home (a $10 find!). Alongside the chair, I brought in one of my many blue and white ceramic garden stools, which are staples in my house that work anywhere and everywhere, indoors and out. On top is a vintage silver lotus dish and a (faux) boxwood ball.

Finally, on the wall between the entry door and the closet door, we added this cool wavy mirror from Anthropologie that brings in an unexpected metal finish and shape. It fills up an awkward wall quite nicely without bringing in more rectangles and squared edges, and the best part is that it reflects more of that gorgeous Tempaper removable wallpaper into the space

The Window Treatments

Originally, I was going to hold off on window treatments for this room, but upon installing the space it was clear that not having any shades was doing this room a disservice. After asking around for sources for custom Roman Shades, I learned that Loom Decor has quick turnarounds, a simple ordering process and super high-quality construction. Working with them, I chose a simple linen (Lush Linen in White) and opted for an inside mount Roman Shade with a privacy liner. Our window is quite wide at 53″ and I didn’t want to steal attention away from the wallpaper, so a simple complementary linen was the perfect choice. I love the texture the shade brings to the room and am amazed at the quality of construction – it’s by far the nicest Roman Shade I’ve ever owned, and it completes the room.

The Lighting & Other Details

The globe flushmount light was a $10 Craigslist find that was brought back to life with a coat of matte black spray paint and a traditional ceiling medallion. I love how the black modern lighting ties in with the other black light fixtures (paired with ceiling medallions too) throughout the adjacent rooms.

The desk lamp is from Leanne Ford’s collection for Target and it’s SO good.

We also built this radiator cover from scratch, which is so much more stylish than the metal radiator cover that previously lived in this room and will forever remind me of a an elementary school built in the 1970s (perhaps that’s an overly specific reference that only applies to Canadian elementary schools?).

We also painted both doors in Benjamin Moore Black Onyx (my all-time fave black paint) and replaced the hardware with vintage brass and glass doorknobs sourced on Ebay, paired with these unlacquered brass rosettes that we’ve added throughout our house for that extra dose of character.

And that’s it! A completely reimagined home office that I can’t wait to get productive in!