Office Makeover: Transforming Our Boardroom Lounge

Hey everyone, Kelsey here! Welcome back to The Sorry Girls blog, where we share our DIY and design adventures. Our boardroom lounge / office living room is a space we love to film and take a lot of video calls in due to its fantastic natural lighting. However, over time, we noticed several elements that were bothering us and just didn't reflect our DIY and design style. So, it was time for a change! Here is how it looked before we made some changes.

The first major issue was the ceiling. When we moved in, it was already black and had been a prominent eyesore during video calls and filming sessions. Some other areas that needed attention were some of the fixtures being the wrong scale, and the colour combinations clashed throughout the room. Lastly, lighting was an important concern because while the natural light is great when it’s sunny out, the space was often dark during late hours or winter months, so we needed to find a way to make it brighter and more inviting.

Starting off with the ceilings, we decided to bring the cream colour that was incorporated throughout the room on the walls up to brighten up the room and make it feel bigger. This fix honestly was the biggest change and immediately made the room feel soooo much more inviting, so the makeover was off to a great start.

Another big change was deciding to strip and refinish the doors in the room. We got these beautiful arch doors on Facebook Marketplace around a year ago, and they came with a cream colour paint on them but we really wanted them to show off the wood underneath.

Stripping and staining the doors was a definitely a learning experience, but after some trial and error, we achieved the vintage, distressed look we were aiming for.

We also decided to add window frost to the windows next to the newly finished doors to create a cohesive look with the frosted glass on the doors.

Doing this in a checkered pattern was the perfect touch to allow for us to still see into the room from the outside (which is important for filming) but adds a bit more privacy and continuity. Here is how the doors and windows looked before and after these changes!

To address the lighting, we brought in some light fixtures around the whole room instead of just using the overhead lighting, such as a vintage Natuzzi lamp that we found on Facebook Marketplace, a restored paper pendant that was initially damaged, and some lamps we already had in the office.

All in all, the end result was well worth the trail and error of this whole process. It now truly represents our DIY and design expertise, and we're excited to continue creating and sharing more inspiring content from this beautiful space.