Grace Bonney, founder of the cult interiors blog Design Sponge, admits that her team's office was "the most spectacular case of 'the cobbler's children have no shoes.'" When Bonney and managing editor Amy Azzarito moved into the space two years ago, they immediately submerged themselves in work projects, squelching the urge to organize their "closet of doom" or find a place for all the beautiful little objects the pair had scrabbled over the years. "All the time we planned to put into designing the space just got put off and put off in favor of work, so we never really got around to creating a 'finished' space," Bonney writes by email. "Eventually it hit a level of disorganization that just had to change." So, after nabbing the interest of a corporate sponsor, they did as any astute design bloggers would: crafted a three-part renovations series. Wins all around.
In 2012, lured by the siren song of an appointed place for crafts and meetings, Bonney and Azzarito found a "fun but raw" space nestled amid the studios that make up The Pencil Factory in Brooklyn's Greenpoint neighborhood. It was a "short bike ride" from both their homes, and sandwiched between the of designers' and craftspeople's studios. They signed the lease thinking they'd overhaul the space to make it their own—but turns out it was easier to remain swamped at work than to make the decor decisions. Bonny explains:
So Bonney and Azzarito pushed aside their ambitious plans for a "separate place to work on craft projects and eat" and the clutter accumulated. That's where Amanda Gorski of Homepolish, a decorating firm that boasts the ability to churn out low-cost, high-end design with the efficiency of a manufacturing plant, came in. "We knew we wanted some pattern and natural materials, but didn't know quite how to pull it all together." And it's true: while knee-deep in the renovation, Bonney wrote, "Like most decorating projects, I tend to just start buying things, rather than making a plan." Gorski brought the eagle eye and battle strategies. Her ideas? Navy-and-olive wallpaper in a Rorschach-test-like print, dark gray Half Moon Crest walls—a heavy-footed and purposeful effort for more sophisticated color, as "I tend to run toward pink like a maniac," Bonney writes) and just one entirely DIY project, a pair of mirrors hanging above Ikea cabinets.
Ah, but you can take the girl out of the crafts, but not the crafts out of—well, you know. Many of the items nabbed from the project's sponsor, Home Decorators Collection, Home Depot's decor outfit, called the were given a Design Sponge-y facelift: the team painted the top of the pub table white, the bottom of the candlesticks gold, and spliced the set of five birdcage pendant lights into individual hangings.
Also spotted in the space: a large (if unsurprising) amount of pretty, vintage craft tools, from vintage scissors to candy cane-colored twine. However, Bonney says her favorite part of the space might be the barn door that closes off the aforementioned closet o' doom. "We wanted something that was a cool gray color and he found the perfect pieces of salvaged lumber to create the door for us."
Of course, this is but one "room within a room" inside the office; the other half remains a fairly un-gussied laptop zone, and that, in some ways, is fairly ideal. "Work-wise, it's so nice to have a space to keep our break/craft projects away from the main working desk," Bonney says. "It's easy to get crowded with take out containers and craft supplies, and it made it a little too easy to have accidents around our computers."
Find Design Sponge's official reveal right this way. Photos, below.
· DS Office Makeover: The Reveal [Design Sponge]
· All Office Spaces posts [Curbed National]
· All Design Sponge coverage [Curbed National]
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