Architect’s Home Office Transformation

When we first moved in here, the space was a little bit depressing. It had this really horrible carpet flooring, and the walls were this weird yellow. I wanted to make sure that our home office was a place with good energy and a place where I felt focused and excited for work.

Hey guys, welcome back to the channel. If you’re new here, my name is Dani, and I’m an architect in Vancouver, BC. Today, I’m going to walk you through my home office.

Establishing a Concept

Before picking the flooring or the paint color and, later on, the furniture, I had to establish a concept for the space. The concept is an idea or the driving force that forms the foundation and the identity of every design project, and it’s going to help you make decisions on all the different aspects of your design.

Interior designers develop the concept through what you call a mood board. A mood is a feeling or a state of mind, and the process of identifying the mood is really a process of discovery. This was a process that I never really explored in architecture. I actually learned this during the time I was working at an interior design firm, and I’m not gonna lie, I was a little bit skeptical in the beginning, but it actually became a very essential part of every interior design project that I take on.

So you start by looking for descriptive words that represent the feeling or mood you’re trying to achieve, and then you look for images that represent them. It was really important for me to create a really calm, relaxing, and energizing space where I could come and do my work in a very focused flow state. I really wanted to design the space for my deep work sessions, which is, you know, primarily how I use my home office. These are some of the images that I pulled. (Notice how these images aren’t necessarily related to furniture or building elements but just something that represents a feeling.)

Once I had my mood board, I could use that to guide my decisions. Based on this, I picked the honey oak vinyl plank flooring. I also really wanted to bring some color into the space, so I ended up picking the sage green as an accent color.

The Space and Layout

So, this is a space. It’s approximately three by four meters, and it’s a slightly unusual configuration. We have doors here and here, and we have this window that’s slightly off-center from the room. This area has a slightly lower ceiling height because of this awkward bulkhead.

My boyfriend and I will be sharing the office space, and both of us work from home part-time. We need a lot of storage for books, electronics, and other miscellaneous materials, as well as a lot of drawer space.

The configuration of the room naturally made this into a circulation zone, so this area was dedicated to storage right from the beginning. Placing the desks along the center would give us the walls as the backdrop when we’re doing video calls, but there was a lot of wasted space. Placing it along this wall didn’t quite give either of us enough space to spread out. So we actually ended up placing the desks back to back. This gives us the most space for moving around, and although it’s not ideal when we’re doing video calls, we try to have good communication and just be mindful of each other.

In this corner, we have two 4x2 Kallax shelves, which fits nicely underneath the bulkhead and it keeps things organized.

Creating Order and Harmony

Before we get into the functional items, there’s one thing that was driving me insane about this room, and it was this lack of symmetry. There’s this bulkhead sticking out, the window is not centered, and let’s face it, these doors are in kind of weird places. I wanted to create some alignment throughout the space, so I ended up buying these Muslanda shelves from IKEA, cutting them to size, and aligning the perimeter of the room to the height of the bulkhead. It’s lined with LED strips to highlight the ceiling.

I also got these pegboards from IKEA, which really helps to create some order and creates a grid in the space. On the bottom row is where I keep items that I access on a daily basis, like pens, rulers, memory cards, keys, and masks because I always seem to forget them when I leave the house.

Things like balance and order might not feel important to you when you’re planning for a functional workspace, but I think it’s really important when you’re trying to create this sense of harmony and trying to create a space that’s calm and relaxing.

Things I need to use daily usually sit on my desk and around my desk, either on these pegboards or on my desk shelf or inside my drawers. All my books or reference materials and electronics sit on the storage shelf over here. I decided to get the two 2x4 Kallaxes instead of a 4x4 because it kind of followed the same grid I was setting up in the space. On either side of my desk, I have the IKEA Alex drawers, which are divided into different compartments. I also have my HP printer, which I use on a pretty regular basis to print out images, drawings, and mood boards.

My Desk Setup

Now, the desk, that is where the magic happens. I’ll leave the links to everything in the description, but for the desk, I have a standing desk by Effie Desk, which I absolutely love. This is the 70-inch large tabletop in oak white, and it has an almost marbled finish that adds a little bit of a natural texture. I put an LED strip along the back so it has this nice glow, and it really sets the mood.

Underneath my desk is very exciting; I have a foot reflexology mat, which has a huge number of health benefits and it just feels amazing when I stand on it.

Sitting on one of my drawers, I also have a portable drawing board by Pacific Arc. I feel like I don’t really get to draw enough these days, but when I do, I could draw on this board for hours.

On my desk, I have a desk shelf by Rob Mate. This is one of those things I didn’t know I needed until I had one. Whenever I have stray pieces of paper or sketches, I just hide them in my shelf, and without having to actually clean things, my desk looks somewhat perpetually neat. Since I use a monitor with my MacBook Pro, I also got their laptop stand that slides into the shelf. I love the design of this. I think it’s smart and elegant, and it really elevates my setup.

I also have a walnut pen holder for my Copic pens and a smaller holder for my sage rollers. It’s amazing what the sense of smell can do to your brain and your overall experience. I put on these rollers and nesting spray and my diffuser before I start work, and you might think it’s a little bit extra, but for me, it really gets me in the right mood. I think it’s kind of hardwired my brain for getting into the focus mode.

Are you okay?

In the winter, I switch to scented candles, and I go through—let’s say, I go through—many of them. I don’t think we do this enough as architects, but do you guys incorporate smell into your designs?

On the side, I have my NAS and my hard drive holder that I designed and laser cut for myself because I couldn’t find any other product online. I also have a Xiaomi lamp, and both the lamp and my back light can change color temperatures. I tend to use the medium warm, around 4000K, the most, and in the evenings, I switch to something a little bit warmer, around 3000K.

Right now, we just have these IKEA chairs that are not amazing. We’re actually saving up for nice, matching chairs that are both, you know, comfortable and aesthetically pleasing. If you have any suggestions for what you think would work in my space, let me know.

Sensory Details and Decor

It’s easy for things to get cluttered really quickly with too many decorative elements, so I have a very curated number of things around my workspace that really spark joy, like this little Katsuya Terada house that I got from one of my subscribers. I love the way it glows in the light.

I try to bring in lots of natural elements, like these rocks that I collected on my trips to Vancouver Island, and I also have a mixture of live and preserved indoor plants. This is the Nesta plant stand that I got from Wayfair, and I love how it adds a softer, round element to the space.

So that was my home office. You know, it’s a constantly evolving space based on our needs, but for now, it makes me feel energized and excited for work every day.