I’m declaring it Men’s Week on my blog. Because I know you’re out there. I know you read my blog. Yes, men read my mommy blog.
Truth be told, I totally do not consider this a “mommy blog” but I’m frequently lumped in that group. Frankly, you can call me whatever you want as long as you read my stuff.
So back to the men… my husband Sean is a full supporter of my blog, including all the reviews that go with it. He loves when I get packages almost as much as I do. When it’s something like clothes or face cream, he quickly loses interest. But this week, I’ve had the chance to review nothing but goodies for him and the timing couldn’t be better.
Last Thursday was Sean’s birthday. And as with many men, he’s pretty difficult to buy for. He either wants really expensive stuff (like a motorcycle), really boring stuff (like mechanical pieces and parts), or he simply buys it for himself.
So what’s a wife to do?
Here’s exactly what I did.Â
I took a look at his mess of an office (sorry, honey) and decided that despite my husband’s many, many talents, decorating and organizing were not among them.
I had cleaned it for him and semi-organized it for him. And it just didn’t take.
As a result, my kitchen table had frequently become overrun with his portable office while his real office sat vacant, with cables, external hard drives, and various unidentifiable electronics parts multiplying in number.
Something had to be done.
When he informed me that he was going to be out of town for three days, returning on his birthday evening, I put the plan in motion.
Step 1
Pull everything out of the office. EVERYTHING.
Step 2
Pick a paint color for the walls (because nobody likes to look at white walls all day). I went with Behr Silver Setting, a bluish-grayish color that would accent his black furniture.
Step 3
Rearrange the furniture. It just wasn’t working. So I consulted my inner feng shui and found better use of the large office that gave him visibility to the door and the view out the window.
Step 4
Buy some office organization stuff. He had no basket or trays or even a pencil cup. There was nowhere to put anything.
Step 5
Add some ambient lighting. All he had was overhead lighting. Blech.
(ignore the mess in the hallway – I still need to clean up after the project)
Step 6
Hang a lot of stuff on the walls. It looked so barren. I wouldn’t have wanted to work there either. Then again, I painted my office and hung pictures when we moved almost right away.
And finally, we get to the inspiration for this whole project. Aluminyze.com contacted me to see if I wanted to review one of their photo products. They have a process that takes a digital photos and infuses it with aluminum, on either a white or silver background.
So I covertly found one of Sean’s photos from his younger days where he was actually popping a wheelie on his motorcycle and had it created as an 11 x 17 photo with a silver background. With the silver background, any white areas of the photo would show up as silver. Since the original was a black and white photo, I thought it would be perfect.
It had a sleek and modern look that would totally go with his office redesign, as I had envisioned it. And the rear mounting let the print stand away from the wall creating a bit of a reverse shadowbox effect.
What started out as a request for a simple review turned into a design inspiration for my husband’s office. So if you have a husband that is begging for a new motorcycle for Father’s Day, perhaps a print to recapture his youth will suffice. (And you don’t actually have to paint and organize to accommodate your print.)
9 comments
Looks great Fadra! We have that same lamp; I love the squareness of it. The aluminyze photo looks awesome. I’ll have to check out their site. Thanks for sharing!
None of my house is modern except for my office and my husband’s so I get to branch out a little when it comes to decorating in there!
Ok, knowing your anal self since my anal self recognizes it … how did you walk past that room day after day? But awesome job 😉
Because that room is buried deep in the basement and I DON’T have to walk past it day after day. Out of sight, out of mind.
WOW!! I cannot show this to my husband, he will divorce me in a heartbeat! You did an AMAZING job! Will you come and redo MY office? lol! I migrated from my office, to the kitchen table and now the dining room table!
I have to admit that I secretly did this not for him but FOR ME! I couldn’t stand it anymore!!
Really looks great! I did witness it before you started. I know Sean must love it!
He’s starting to get used to working in there again. Yay – I have my kitchen table back!
[…] missed it, last week, I surprised Sean with an office makeover all so that I could surprise him with an awesome aluminyzed print to help him recapture his youth. Then, I gifted him with a new electric razor while I took (clean) pictures of him in the […]