creative briefing

Once upon a time in July, I had the ambitious dream to convert the room that I had lived in for more than 10 years and had never renovated into a legendary home office (yes, legendary). It took a whole 3 months to get off my ass and make my way down to IKEA to pick out some furniture. Then it took another 2 months (that’s 5 months in total now) to actually start the renovation process and build that furniture. See kids, reach for the stars and you’ll eventually get there - half a year later.

But don’t let the sarcasm fool you - I’m stoked. My room is awesome (by my standards). On the legendary scale, we’ve long passed the le, zipped by the gen, and are excitedly partying in the da. Yes, I’m missing a few things still that will thrust my room into ry, thereby completing the legendary home office I had always dreamed of. One step at a time.

Let me give you the tour.

The before-after 360 tour

Italics represents furniture or supplies purchased for the remodelling of the home office

Before, the closet

After, still the closet (L to R):

• No mirror (but still self-absorbed): the blank space where the old vertical mirror used to be, and where a new mirror will soon be.
• A reminder of before - discolored closet doors that, when asked about, I say match the off-white of my new drawers. But they don’t.
• A sideview of my new drawers.

Before, desk 1

After, the drawers (L to R):

• IKEA Malm Chest of 6 drawers ($149)
• A row of reference books and interesting reads (behind)
• My 2 greatest achievements framed: Co-op Student of the Year Award and my girlfriend. Haha.
• Things that make me smell pretty

Before, desk 2

After, the bed (L to R):

• The Blue Wall: smothered in my agency’s brand color, it screams “See, I can be interesting too!”
• New window blinds (nothing interesting, just the fact that they’re new and match everything else)
• The new bed that looks surprisingly like my old bed (free!)
• Bed sheets and cover that no longer match anything in the room.

Before, the shelf with lots of stuff

After, the corner with lots of nothing (L to R):

•  The beautiful marriage of blue and white on my walls that screams “Okay, I get boring from herein.”

Before, the bed

After, the desk (L to R):

• IKEA Vika Amon Table Top + 4 Vika Curry Legs ($79.99)
• IKEA Global Work Lamp ($39.54)
• Sony XD200 Headphones that I bought myself for Christmas
• New Comstar 500GB hard drive that I will use to back my entire life up into
• 21.6″ LG LCD, now mounted on a wicked Ergotron Neo-Flex monitor arm ($112.99)
• IKEA Goliat Drawer Unit (underneath) ($45.19)
• Mesh Office Chair ($79.07)
• The new desk that I can actually work and be productive on (priceless)

Before, the door

After, the door (L to R):

• Bare walls = empty canvas
• Active hat and jacket roster, including my new too-gangster-for-my-own-good American Eagle Alpine Bomber Jacket (most left)
• Tuff & Tidy over the door coat hooks ($5.40) means no more jackets slung over the chair (I had a bad habit of doing that before)

Ta-da! As you can see from the before-after 360 tour, the room is actually a lot emptier than it was before. The walls, for one thing, have yet to be touched, but overall everything in the room actually has an active purpose now.

Here’s a closer look at a few cool features I’ve added to my room:

Probably the coolest new addition to my room is the aforementioned Ergotron Neo-Flex monitor arm. Here’s a better look.

Here’s a better view of it from behind - 5 pivot joints!

Best of all, here’s the view from my bed that the pivoting action lets me have while I’m kicking back and watching episodes of How I Met Your Mother (a show that shares the same legendary features as my new home office).

I even splurged to get me my own secretary to answer my phone calls (okay, Manga Spawn is just a cool action figure that needed a home).

The Bill

When I set out on this project, I actually didn’t define a budget. In fact, as I write this out, I’m calculating the sum of my expenses for the very first time. This should be fun.

• Paint… free (it’s great to have family in the renovation business)
• New Bed… free (handed down from my brother who used the bed for a mere 4 months during his brief move downtown)
• IKEA Malm Chest of 6 drawers… $149.00
• IKEA Vika Amon Table Top + 4 Vika Curry Legs… $79.99
• IKEA Global Work Lamp… $39.54
• Ergotron Neo-Flex monitor arm… $112.99
• IKEA Goliat Drawer Unit… $45.19
• Mesh Office Chair… $79.07
• Tuff & Tidy over the door coat hooks… $5.40

Grand total: $511.18

Not too shabby considering no piece of furniture from the old room remains!

To-do’s

• Shelves! There’s still too many things lingering on my desk (like my action figures) that need to be on a shelf somewhere. The plan is to have a headboard shelf installed above my bed, and two rows of shelves above the desk.
• Pictures, certificates, and a giant whiteboard: I have a few things that I want to hang and display and there’s a really cool giant whiteboard waiting to be put up.

But one step at a time. It may take me another 5 months to get the above 2 items up, but even then, it’ll be a pretty damn good 5 months!

Hope you enjoyed the tour!