4 Affordable Ways to Upgrade Your Home Office

by Chan Vu, Sep 29 2015

When I started working from home six months ago, it was a dream come true. I no longer had to deal with the morning and afternoon commute. What to wear each day was no longer a problem. Finally, I can decorate my home office any way I want. Unfortunately, the cost of converting an unused room into an office can get pricey. I wanted chic furniture and cute office supplies to keep me productive. I discovered that I could use the items I already had and give it a makeover for a fresh look. Here are four affordable ways to update your home office.

1.Spray paint your clipboard. Clipboards can be ugly but useful when you need something to hold it all together. I used leftover white spray paint to give that clipboard a fresh look. I also cut out some vinyl decals from my paper cutting machine to add a little design to my clipboard. A gold or metallic marker makes a great design tool as well.

2. Washi tape pencil wrap. I still like to use pencils to write but the ugly yellow pencils my boss supplied is such a buzzkill. I used various washi tapes to spiral wrap each pencil in different washi tape designs. Now I have a fun and decorative pencil collection.

3. Scrapbook note cards. I cut up old scrapbook papers into 6x4 rectangles. Then I took a hole puncher and made a hole on the left corner of each card. I used a notebook ring to hold the stacks of note cards together. The notebook ring lets me add or remove cards as needed. On the back, I stamped each note card with a Remember stamp. Now I have a decorative notebook to jot down my daily notes, reminders and to-do lists.

4. Re-purposed work desk. I was given a small dining table from a relative for free. It was dark brown while my home office is white. My simple solution is to sand down the brown wood polish and paint it white. I only needed a quart of white paint which was under $10. The table looks great and makes the whole office bright and beautiful.