Office Decor: How to style custom Shelving & Desk

We are SUPER excited to reveal how we styled our DIY custom shelves and desk - we have been inspired, searched for and found some great finds and added a few personal items as well.

My husband has always wanted to customize a shelf and desk for our office space. These DIY INDUSTRIAL-INSPIRED SHELVES (you can see the step-by-step “how-to” here) and how we built our Modern-Rustic Desktop (you can find the instructions here) along with our IKEA CABINETS as the base provide a great office makeover.

The materials used to build these items were all from HOME DEPOT – great price points, selection and assistance and services.

BIG thanks goes out to my husband for his amazing carpentry skills and creativity, for guiding me through and being able to participate in the building process (if I can build and assemble anyone surely can too) and thank you to him for helping me to share the specs and step-by-steps with everyone.

(Yes we are goofballs and enjoy any possibility to laugh at ourselves, so thought we would share these snapshots with you all)

Of course, one of my favourite parts was decorating. We are not interior designers by profession but we do get inspired by trends in stores, online, etc. Inspiration can come from anywhere.

Anyone can add some style to their home. It is your home and space. Your space and style is YOURS TO DEFINE (<-- see how I sneaked that in there – it’ true though.) So, let your personality shine through in how you choose to style it. We like to mix a bit of traditional, combined with modern and rustic pieces and a few unique items that will always be a conversation piece – and these shelves, desk and decor pieces fit right in!

STYLING THE DESK:

The desktop and stain colour turned out fantastic – we love how the stain colour brings out the grain of the wood and balances so well with the crisp white cabinets which have 4 drawers per cabinet, providing even more storage.

My mom had discovered this galvanized mailbox actually at BOUCLAIR and thought it would be a perfect addition to the overall look (fantastic!) – Great for miscellaneous paper items.

We added the computer to the desk and printer as well. In the plans for the desktop, we chose to make it a lengthy desk as it provides room for these items as well as an efficient workspace.

The clock is from HOMESENSE – love the vintage style it brings to the desktop.

STYLING THE SHELVES:

We are really happy with the stain choice as well as the Birch wood that we chose purchased at HOME DEPOT – love the grain of the wood:

We stacked some books (which we already had, older and recent books) to various areas of the shelf and added unique pieces to them. The depth of the shelves are great for larger items, like binders and storage bins, paper, etc.

We enjoy carrying out tradition and also incorporating pieces that were passed down from family members. These items fit so well with the look of the shelves and add a cherished personal touch as well.

These binoculars belonged to my husband’s Grandfather:

This carpentry tool (called a Smoothing Planer) belonged to my Grandfather

My husband’s dad gave us this Polaroid Camera {so awesome}

We added some pieces like a LANTERN from the Dollar Store and filled it with some greenery (for some colour) and rocks. We will be adding some succulents as well for the Spring season.

This vintage style video camera is from HOMESENSE

Added some Deco balls items from IKEA to various sections of the shelves.

The shelves provide a great amount of storage to help keep items off the desk, organized and in sight. We added binders and books which fit so well with the depth of the shelves and keeps these items off of the desk.

This vintage-style Globe (we had been in search for quite some time) we found at Michaels for under $30 (it was on sale and there was a sale on many items in the store and we purchased a few other things for the home…love Michaels, so many fantastic options for DIY!)

These “Galvanized Letters” were also purchased at Michaels – they have a huge selection and variety of different kinds of letters in sizes and styles – you can paint and add a design to your own or buy one’s that have artistic touches to them. To tie in with the metal features of the shelves, we went with these galvanized letters = the sale at the time was BUY ONE GET ONE FREE

We enjoy adding custom pieces to our home and we are so happy with the design, colour choices and combination of industrial, modern and rustic touches - an amazing functional office space that is personalized, has unique features and great multi-storage options.

We really love the overall look of our custom shelves and desk and – if you have followed our posts, there will definitely be some more DIY projects to come both in the office (including my workspace) and throughout our home, so stay tuned!

We can’t stop staring at it. It feels great to have a unique and organized space that we created together and enjoy working in!

Thank you for stopping by to see the reveal.

We hope that we have inspired you to add some unique style to your home! Let us know what you think by commenting below :)