Week three: the office

The room I chose for my home office has tan walls, white trim, and at some point the wood floor was painted a pale greyish white that was showing a lot of wear and tear.  The wood itself isn't in the greatest shape, so shabby paint wasn't helping.  I've learned that painted wood on the upper floors would have been original to a house of this era.  The owners would have spent all the money on really nice wood floors for the first floor, and then used cheaper, painted wood upstairs.

I have daydreams about having an office straight out of the Pottery Barn catalog.

Those amazing white desks and filing cabinets with the silver drawer pulls...  seriously, I am in love with this stuff.  But, of course, I can't come close to affording it.  Instead I plan on painting the furniture I do have with a bright white paint.

So that leaves me with tan walls, white furniture, white trim ... what to do with the floor?  I certainly don't want to paint it white also.  As much as I adore Scandinavian white-on-white design, it's not for me in my real life.  So... PINK.  Obviously.  

I had a sample can of Valspar's National Historic Society "Grand Hotel Geranium Pink."  It was too bright for any walls, but as a native Michigander I couldn't possibly not use it.  I have tons of memories of going to the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island with my family as a child, riding bikes around the island and, of course, going to tea at the hotel.

I poured about 3/4 of the pink can into a standard gallon of ultra white floor paint from Home Depot and mixed well.  

The results are completely amazing.  It's the perfect balance of subtle and refreshingly unexpected.  Plus, I can honestly say there is no one in the world who has the same floor as me.