Oh yeah, it happened. Or IS happening. It was office makeover time. If you follow me on snapchat (sugercoatit, derr) you would have seen progress as we went through the first day. On Instagram, I shared a before and after of the floor. But what you didn’t see is the transformation of this once single garage turned 90’s bedroom into the home of my business Suger Social.
I mean before, it was bad.
Smelly bad.
Old blinds and stinky carpets bad.
This bad.
And yes, my entire house prior to her recent paint job was that lovely shade of 90’s green with white and salmon trims. Like. A. Boss. Haha. Matching forest green carpet to ice that cake and about 20 or so years of wear and tear. An inspiration to work, it was not. And when I say it wasn’t inspiring, I don’t mean a little bit, I mean it smelt so bad in there and was so dusty and musty that I think if I worked in there I would’ve probably passed out.
BUT.
Nothing a bit of scrubbing, some paint and the removal of anything fabric that was holding damp smells wouldn’t fix. So that’s what we did next. We being the thing here, Mr Suger was heavily involved and I’d hired a painter. After that, it looked a little bit more like the next photos and I set up shop with plans to figure out what the heck to do with the floors later.
But during the recent long weekend, after a few too many hours on Pinterest, I decided that for the time being I wanted to either clean and gloss the concrete or paint it… And a project was born. Mr Suger begrudgingly became my slave again as we moved the furniture out and around. I swept and mopped and scrubbed and scraped the floors. Then he hit them with a pressure wash and all sorts of force.
There may be acid involved.
After a day to dry, and a reunion to attend, the Monday morning we reviewed how it was coming up (badly, so badly, 1970’s concrete for garages, not so fancy apparently). I quickly decided we’d paint. The floor had a lot of variation in texture and even a bunch of pocket holes, but I was ready to go so we proceeded as it was. While it was wet you could REALLY see all that, but I’m not worried, I lived with it how it was before. This was a major improvement.
And so, this week after giving it a bunch of time to dry (and three coats in the end and 4L of black, self-priming paint) I started moving my items back in. I’d decided to keep only a bookshelf and we had constructed a desk from an internal door and two 1200mm saw horses with metal legs. I started putting some items back in, I even grabbed my first daily instagram outfits.
And yes, there’s a long way to go.
My new minimalist furniture choices leave a lot to be desired in terms of housing the legitimate items that a business requires (papers, soooo many papers). So the other night, under the light of the fluro I snapped one last pic for this post. So even though I’m not done and even though there’s a pile of stuff in the corner that needs a home, I’m happy we did it! My business’s new home is looking good. And it feels like home.
And yeah, there was wine! Haha.
{want more from our house? Check out the archives.}
Hi! I’m Melissa Walker Horn. Around here, they call me Suger. I’m the Chief Blogger and doer of all the things here at Suger Coat It. Blogging since 1901; I love a casual ootd, taking photos, and writing about things that irk or inspire me. I love wine and cheese, long days at the beach and spending time with my family. I make stuff for the internet over at Chalkboard Digital. You know, living the sweet life.
Guh! It looks so good! This is one of the reasons why I want to own my own home, so I can do stuff like this to it. I can’t wait to see how it progresses even more!
Thanks hun! It’s been a work in progress for a while but I’m glad to see it towards the end now.
I was just complaining last night how I needed an office! Looks like you got ample space there, lovely! That glass of wine sitting on the corner of the desk looks inviting too 🙂 x
It’s certainly a luxury to have all this space to myself. LOTS I can do and create in here. And yes, well, the wine was SO needed by this stage. Haha. sore muscles and tired bones.
That looks so awesome! I have office envy – my “office” is a corner of the dining room table! And how cool is your desk?!
I hear you lady! I’ve worked from the couch for a while and this space sometimes feels a little empty and void of noise to work in, but I do love it. Plus it’s ALL MINE, can’t argue with that!
I love your new office . It looks like an awesome space and I can picture some fab artwork on your walls and it will be great for outfit pics .
Thank you lovely! It’s getting there. I’ve been staring at those blank walls for so long now I’m wondering if I’ll ever commit to what I’d put on them. 😉
Looks much better! And I must confess: I was one of those people that had green walls. And carpet. And kitchen cupboards – all in the house we built in 1993. It looked fab back then – we were ahead of our times – and then it became the fashion, which means then it went OUT of fashion. Can’t believe it was 23 years ago! It’s on the market at the moment so we went and had a sticky, they’ve painted it mostly a moody dark grey, which looks much better now.
Thanks Janet, I think so! And yeees, my first house was during that yellow and blue phase, very seaside chic without the chic. Haha. Cool at the time but dates like no one’s business.