As much as I’d love to have my own office space in a far off and quiet corner of the house, the fact is that I still need to be in the main area of the house most of the day.

Finally decorate your own home – with confidence!

You’re so much closer to a beautifully-decorated home than you think. You just need a little help to get there!

Between kids’ homeschool questions and the puppy and meals, the main floor is where I need to be.

So between that and the kids giving up piano, we decided to bring the custom desk that Dean made for me back up to the dining room.

farmhouse industrial desk area

It’s not the first time it’s been here. Ages ago the space looked like this:

desk living room wall

When the piano arrived last year, the desk was banished to the crawl space. However as much as I loved the thought of our kids playing piano, they just didn’t love it. So with space in short supply (don’t forget we live in a small house), we gave the piano away to a new home and reclaimed some much needed space on the main floor.

We dressed up the desk with some new lamps from Birch Lane. To be honest I originally bought them for the living room, but if you follow us on Instagram and saw the sneak peeks you too know that they just weren’t right for the small space. But here, oh here on my desk, they look so elegant and perfectly proportioned (unlike the original lamps I had – see above!).

Birch Lane Table Lamps

We paired the desk with our settee which is really meant for the dining room table. However since we still eat at the dining table three times a day, it was a little too much to keep it clean. And it is so comfy at my desk!  elegant home office area in the dining room

I also wanted to bring some family photos back into our decor but in a stylish way, so I’ll be sharing all about the black and white framed photo grid and how to display family photos stylishly in a couple of weeks. And you can probably see in the corner of the pics above that the stairs got a bit of a makeover too. I’ll be sharing that project once the runner gets installed. We’re also working on a new closet/pantry and a bathroom reno is coming soon. 🙂

Yay for progress!

home office area in the dining room before and after

So I have a desk area again and the space is significantly more grown up now, don’t you think? Do you love these lamps better here?

xo,
Shannon

This post sponsored by Birch Lane who gave us the table lamps. While originally for our living room, we appreciate their flexibility and willingness to roll with our design vision! Click here for our full disclosures.

shannon photo and sig oct 2022