Let's go shopping....

Let’s just pretend, for kicks, that we lived in Centennial, Colorado…or maybe West Chester, Ohio…or suppose we moved down to Sunrise, Florida…if any of these were the case, then you would not be about to enjoy this blog post!!  But we do not live in Bloomington, Minnesota or Bolingbrook, Illinois…and so, we have to rely on friends!!  Friends who are true friends will go the extra mile, they will drive to the store they have never even been to, they will be overwhelmed by the massive hugeness of the task of finding the precious needed treasures on your list…and they will conquer…all because you do not live in Frisco, Texas…

Amanda and I love to high/low…this means mixing higher quality, and thus higher priced, items with off-the-shelf bargains from Target, IKEA…you name it!  Even our most discriminating clients appreciate that we can hunt down a bargain…even the largest budget hits a ceiling somewhere!!  And so it was with our own offices….and since we were not willing to sacrifice form for a functioning space….we brought in the cavalry!!

They scoured the aisles, filled up a cart, searched through the names no one outside of Norway...or is is Sweden can pronounce...a "KLIPPAN" what???  "EKENÄS" who??

Our loyal friend (and her lovely daughter) took on IKEA for us because we were desperate for some great pieces (read: cheap price but good quality…modern look but not modern price…fun and a little funky, but not expensive…is there a theme here???) for our recent office reno!!  (See the almost finished product here) 

Thanks again ladies!!  We appreciate it from the bottom of our "HOVÅS"...oops...getting a little carried away...

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Form or Function?? Yes!!

Over the last few months, Amanda and I have been slowly but surely pulling our own design space together.  We approached our office in the same way we do any client's space…we have just been implementing our plan VERY. SLOWLY. 

Honestly, we didn’t actually set out to “do” the AsterHouse office…we had literally dumped all of our paraphenalia into the raw space and thought we would tackle it when we had the time and budget to do it "right"!!  But because we both operate best when we are inspired by our environment,  it didn't take long to see the need to get the office done…or least started...

As much as we desired the space to provide the inspiration for great design ideas…we knew it would never be right unless it functioned well…and that, we knew, was the first place to start.  AsterHouse loves to create gorgeous spaces, but if that space does not function well it is a huge FAIL in our minds…so, that is where we always begin…whether for a client or our own office!

For our home away from home, the wish list was kinda long…we have a nice size space…about 20’x18’, but it needed to house two desks, an "island-ish" place to lay out projects or splay our huge drawings.  We needed a “lounge area” to host clients as well as attractive storage space to hold our growing collection of fabric samples, vendor catalogs and our office stash of Twizzlers!!  (Must have creative fuel!!) 

When thinking through the function, elements of form always enter the mind and often inform the layout…for instance, we like to work facing each other…it makes bouncing ideas off so much more fun when you can see each other face to face…so, instead of two separate desks we found this fabulous “dining table” at West Elm...

...and it was our jumping off point for the whole work station!  We sent a friend on a wild goose chase through IKEA (a whole other post!!) to pick up some fabulous storage pieces for the walls and we had a local contractor build us a custom wall unit!!  (the top will eventually be covered in stainless!!) 

With the white laquered furniture, storage pieces and white trim, we chose a pale gray for the walls...I will admit that it took two tries to get it right...but we love it!!  Perfect backdrop to all the gorgeous colors that roll around our creative space!!

SW7671 On The Rocks

So here is what we have so far!!  I don't really have any good "before's" and it is not even close to complete so it cannot be referred to as an "after"...so here is a "now"!!

(I will save the lounge area for another post....the furniture is in place but everything is still in "before" condition!!)

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