My mid-century modern home office makeover project – getting started

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If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you’ll know how much I love mid-century modern design. Not only is my home filled with retro furniture, but the house itself was built in 1950, so it’s just made for this style of decor.

Plus, I’ve been a columnist for Reclaim magazine for over 7 years, writing the monthly Design Icon column. I couldn’t fail to fall further in love with mid-century design after writing about it every month and researching all the iconic designers of the era.

So, it probably comes as no surprise that I’ve decided to give my home office a mid-century makeover this month. It was previously very much a kids’ room with star wallpaper and pink accents – which was lovely when my nieces and nephews stayed over, but didn’t suit me as much anymore. Check out the ‘before’ photos here.

Plus, here’s why I decided to make the change now:

I found this G Plan desk at the fabulous secondhand store Vintage Mischief and, after a bit of bartering, I got it for a bargain price. I’d previously been searching for something similar, but the ones I had found online were way out of my budget, so I snapped it up when I spotted this one and I prayed it would fit in the car to get it home.

The desk is actually a Fresco dressing table, but over the years, it has had its mirror removed and has been used as a desk. It still has a central velvet-lined drawer for jewellery (which is rather fusty-smelling, but we’ll deal with that later). With such a lovely warm tone of teak wood, I wanted to choose a contrasting colour for the walls, so I tried a couple of samples I had leftover from the kitchen makeover.

I especially liked the Palm Springs deep teal paint – it looked grown up and showed off the wood of the desk beautifully. So, I got to work stripping off the old star-patterned wallpaper, which was easy to do because the wall was in terrible condition behind it – it actually flaked away with the wallpaper.

That’s when I remembered why we had decided to wallpaper the room – we’d run out of energy after refinishing all the other walls in the house eight years ago and just wanted to cover it up! Plus, the star wallpaper was just £1 per roll in the bargain bucket at the DIY store, so I had decided that would do for the time being.

After refinishing the walls and painting them with a white undercoat (which I was almost tempted to keep – you know how much I love a white wall), I decided to do something I’d never done before: I asked AI to use my photo of the room above to mock up the office for me. I knew I wanted to use Crown’s Breatheasy paint in Palm Springs teal, but I wanted to see what it would look like in my tiny room. This is the result:

Below is the moodboard I came up with for the room. My home is much more ‘modern mid-century’ rather than mid-century modern, as I like to take elements from the past – the furniture and colourways – and update them with crisp contrasting white woodwork and contemporary prints.

Although I hadn’t yet gathered together all the pieces I’d need to complete the space, I decided to dive in headfirst with the rich blue paint. I had to get started; otherwise, I would’ve ended up keeping the fresh white walls and I don’t need another room in my home to be all white. The teal looked amazing after one coat – it’s always such a dramatic transformation when you go from light to dark, isn’t it?

I did a second coat later that same day and it looked gorgeous. However, I noticed that, strangely, the star pattern from the wallpaper was still coming through the paint, which was very odd because I’d removed it all. I soon realised that the wallpaper must have absorbed more moisture where the textured stars were, leaving drier patches on the wall in a star pattern.

The stars seemed to absorb the paint more than the surrounding areas, so I went over them another time – and when just a couple of stars were still showing through at the end, I painted over these individually. They’re now completely gone; no more ghost stars here.

So, that’s where I’m at with my mid-century home office makeover. Walls painted, white woodwork refreshed and just the desk in the office. It’s echoey and empty, but I’m sure it’ll soon be finished with more mid-century furnishings, so be sure to check back soon to see the finished room.

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