About a year ago, I mentioned that my office was in the middle of a revamp, and that the plans included a black accent wall and a few dalmatian print walls done with a stencil. I finished the black wall, painted the other three white, and then slowly tackled the first stenciled wall. But then life happened and a potential move to Texas appeared in our future. Dalmatian print walls are not exactly first choice when staging a home to sell, and I didn’t want to do a ton of work only to paint over it, so the plans were put on hold. And I never got back to them. So much for getting my office pretty and functional!

I haven’t blogged about my dalmatian print walls since then because the perfectionist in me thinks people only want to see the finished product and all of the pretty pictures. However, it seems like the blogosphere is pushing toward more real life posts, and I love that trend… So I’m posting pictures of my half-finished “in progress” office. Please tell me if you’re a fan of the “real life” posts in the comments below so I know this isn’t a mistake! 😉

Here’s where I’m at… This is a very accurate picture of what my office currently looks like, and sometimes there are a few brown boxes stacked under the window from online orders I’ve placed but not yet opened.

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The stencil I’m using is from Royal Design Studio, and I love the look. While I’m sticking pretty closely to my original design plan, I want to bring in mainly softer pinks (the chair will stay simply for budget reasons), mixed metals, and some organic elements such as textured sisal baskets and a plant or two. Here is the gist of what I’m thinking.

If you’d like to achieve a similar look, sources are as follows:

Dining Chair – World Market (in black)

White Wood Desk – similar at Pottery Barn Teen, Wayfair, and Target

Gold Bulletin Board – Pottery Barn Teen

Faux Fiddle Leaf Fig – World Market or similar at Joss & Main

Black Bookcases – Crate & Barrel or smaller scale at Pottery Barn

Gold and Marble Etagere – Similar (but with glass) at One Kings Lane or Bed Bath & Beyond

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Envisioning the end goal has me excited to finish the stencil walls and get on to the other stuff.

You can see the one finished wall and the two blank white walls. I’m also planning on painting the entire main floor white, which is why there is a piece of white painted poster board taped to the wall. We have very creamy warm trim (Dover White by Sherwin Williams), and I’ve been hunting for the perfect white that doesn’t look stark compared to our trim, but still reads as white overall.

The office color is Benjamin Moore White Dove, and it feels a tiny bit too cool and cloudy. It looks great with the dalmatian print walls stencil over it, but I don’t love the plain white with our trim. In our bedroom, I used Benjamin Moore Cloud White, and I mostly love it, but in certain lights, the trim still looks creamier than the walls, which I know will bother me in our main living space.

The color on the poster board is Benjamin Moore Swiss Coffee, and I think it might be perfect. It’s a tad warmer than the White Dove, creamier than the Cloud White, looks great next to our trim, and appears white overall. When you compare the RGB values of Swiss Coffee to our trim, they are actually super similar. You might wonder why I don’t just use the same color as our trim, but I am a die hard Benjamin Moore girl, and I’ve had the trim color matched before, but the formulas don’t carry over perfectly and it’s a tiny bit off. I’d rather just pick a color I love!

A lot of the design in my office is centered around function. I almost always have at least one or two bags of stuff I’m using for a client space lying around, and I have a collection of accessories and books I can switch out in my own home or pull into a client space, so I need storage. This Ikea Hyllis bookshelf is currently functioning as storage, but I don’t love the look of it, so it will probably be getting a glam makeover in the near future. I also have some big bookcases in my garage that are going to be painted black, but I made a mistake with those last fall that I blogged about here, so they’re currently hanging out in the garage and testing the patience of my amazing husband.

My desk is a bit messy, but not too bad. It’s definitely been worse, but this is not the pretty styled desk I hope to have in my final office reveal. Like I mentioned, I’m trying to keep it real here!

The Home Goods bag is for a client. I’d really like some closed storage to hide these types of items, but I’m not sure the shelving unit I have will accommodate bags of that size. There is only one set of doors, and I’m hoping to hide the printer behind them.

It’s currently tucked behind my desk with a pile of catalogs on top of it. Lovely.

The little pink toy tucked in the corner is a vanity my sister bought for my daughter when she turned two, which turned out to be one of the best gifts ever, because Arabella uses it as a desk and writes letters and works on art projects when I need to get stuff done on the computer. It’s so sweet how she wants to “work” with me, although to be honest, her constant need for company does make it a bit difficult to get stuff done at times. At least she still thinks I’m cool enough to WANT to hang out with me.

So that’s the status of the dalmatian print walls in my office at the moment. I’d love to hear what you think about these progress updates as opposed to waiting to see the finished product! Do you like seeing the in between stages, or would you rather wait and see the full reveal?