Earlier than and After: A Designer Revamps a Builder-Grade Desk Space in Her Son’s Childhood Bed room With Some Intelligent Repurposing and Leftover Supplies

Many empty nesters decide to perform a little little bit of redecorating after their children depart residence, however not all dad and mom are designers that may actually breathe new life right into a drained, worse-for-the-wear house. When designer Erin Zubot’s son left for faculty, his empty room had seen higher days — assume wall harm, a half-removed, dated wallpaper border, mismatched woods, and a textured ceiling. Zubot needed to remodel the house right into a visitor room, however not with out making some main aesthetic adjustments first so she may begin with a really clean slate.

“I made a decision to present it a paint job and take away the popcorn ceiling earlier than we added furnishings again in,” she says. The one factor she wasn’t going to subtract — and the true star of the room now— needs to be the newly transformed desk space, which Zubot had at all times meant to outfit as a stitching nook that she may share along with her daughter.

Luckily, the room had first rate bones and already featured a built-in desk nook with cabinetry above it that Zubot may repurpose and construct upon. It bothered her that the cupboards weren’t stage however appeared staggered, and the desktop itself wanted refinishing. Furthermore, she needed the spot to work with the remainder of the room color- and style-wise, which now leans conventional with a twist.

First, she tackled the cabinetry. After eradicating the uppers from the wall and unscrewing them from one another, she reduce the center cupboard down to suit with the others. Then she nailed the entire cupboards again collectively and hung them on the wall slightly nearer to the ceiling line. “Probably the most difficult half was slicing the cupboard, however that wasn’t all that difficult,” Zubot says. “We didn’t even take the cupboard aside; actually; we simply put the entire thing on the desk noticed and turned it to chop one aspect at a time.” To create slightly second for open shelving, she additionally determined to maintain the door off of the middle cupboard upon reinstall.

To improve this spot additional, Zubot used leftover supplies from previous tasks. Crown molding and trim got here collectively to type a valence that provides polish to the uppers, whereas beadboard provides visible curiosity as a wall protecting that features virtually like a backsplash for the cabinetry and continues beneath the desk to the ground. Zubot gave all the cupboards and drawers on this space a contemporary coat of Benjamin Moore’s Knoxville Grey (HC-160) to unite the entire disparate items, creating the phantasm of 1 high-end, vintage-looking built-in nook. She even modified out the knobs on the drawers to spherical wood handles painted to match the cupboards (elsewhere within the room, this paint colour seems as a door and trim colour, too).

To complete off the realm, she sanded down and restained the countertop then pulled up a classic chair to the desk. Lastly, she hung a couple of small brooms and a candy floral portray within the nook as equipment and positioned a stitching machine and vase of flowers on the tabletop.

“I really like how a lot better this house seems to be now,” Zubot says of the newly completed desk space. “It seems to be like a thought-about a part of the room design and way more customized, prefer it matches the little opening a lot better.” There’s one different hidden bonus of her reconfiguration of this space that Zubot shares. “Including the valence additionally allowed us so as to add slightly battery-operated under-cabinet mild there, which is a lot better if you wish to use the desk as a stitching space, as we do now,” she says.