Office redo: inspiration

Memorial Day weekend was a good one.

With the weather being cloudy, off and on rainy, and overall chilly (60s at best), I didn't feel the desire to take many pictures. M and I went to Bachelor Farmer here in Minneapolis on Friday and ate ourselves stupid (seriously, if you're in MN and have never been there: GO. Such a unique dining experience. All local food, very contemporary, with a Scandinavian twist!). Saturday..hmm.. what did we do. AH, I ran errands to get supplies for my dad's office redo..the actual topic of today's post! and Saturday night we went to the Happy Gnome in St. Paul to celebrate a friend's nursing school graduation. Sunday was a lazy day with the kitty, as was Monday. Monday night we went to my parents to grill, and I closed off the weekend with a viewing of the Bachelorette. I don't even want to hear it. It's trash, probably half fake, and I don't curr.

 

Moving on, since I took no real photos this weekend..

 

I casually mentioned a while ago that I wanted to redo my dad's office. 

A few years back, when my dad was in Florida, I surprised him by updating his kitchen. Nothing terribly fancy, but I painted the cabinets (they had this delightfully hideous sponge painted strawberry detailing), painted the walls, replaced all the hardware, and bought a shelf and some art. He was floored when he got home and saw it. 

Well, my mother... bless her... and her wheelchair, have destroyed the kitchen. She's run into the cabinets, scraped the walls, to the point where there's giant rivets gone in the wood, and the white cabinets are now incredibly dirty and stained. I don't even like talking about it because it bums me out so hard. I know it's not her fault, and now she doesn't really tool around in her wheelchair the way she used to, but it still makes me go "wahhh." 

The bonus with the office is: she never goes in there! Just kidding. But my dad has painted her room and mentioned wanting to paint and clean up the office, which was my childhood bedroom, before the wedding since one of his friends will be staying with them. That's when I realized that his upcoming trip to Canada with M would provide the perfect opportunity to surprise him with an office redo! 

I created a polyvore account (that people continue to "follow" me on, despite the fact that I've only created ONE board?) to mock up an inspiration board for the office. Here's what I came up with:

So yesterday I headed to Target to try to recreate this mood board. I picked up 4 window panels:

 

They were on sale for $13 a piece, and these curtain rods in a silver finish: 

 

Annnd I splurged on this mercury lamp base, that I wanted to keep for myself (although I think it was only $29.99 in store): 

 

and this lamp shade to top her off: 

I'm unsure if I'm going to go through with the rug.. I may sacrifice that for more art in the budget (he has some great old sports photos/memorabilia I may frame). I'm going to go scout desks at IKEA this week, which is where the desk in the inspiration board is from. Although, I may opt for a more plain "table" style desk, with no drawer. I'll have to see what they have in stock.

I'm planning on painting it something like this:

SO, stay tuned for some updates! We'll see how this goes. :P