Our Big Upcycled Office Renovation

By Helen Edwards | May 23, 2018 |

Pegboard ideas for your office and using wood wash to upcycle furniture, plus painted floorboards and a lovely fiddle leaf fig!
Pegboard ideas for your office and using wood wash to upcycle furniture, plus painted floorboards and a lovely fiddle leaf fig!This post is brought to you in partnership with Monsta
We are on the home stretch of our inside home renovations and we are feeling the pinch! We have recently completed the office, and have Maxwell’s room to go. We will then take a break before finishing later in the year with the kitchen, bathroom and laundry. In spring we plan to paint the outside of the house. The office was one of the biggest challenges we faced. It is also the room I spend most time in, so it was worth the wait. After we renovated our back room, bedroom, dining room and lounge, it was time for the office!

This room had some serious issues. It is an addition built in the 1970’s by the original owners. We are not sure what they did (or didn’t do) but there was a massive crack in the top of one wall which means they may not have used the correct products in attaching the extension; as well as a gaping strip in the ceiling, where the bookcase that now lives in our lounge, used to divide the room. John used a flexible filler in the large crack, to allow for movement, and a new batten across the ceiling to fix the gape. When we first moved in, the office was small, with a larger room at the back of the house. John reconfigured this, so that both rooms are about the same size. I share the room with 2 of our sons, Maxwell aged 9 and James aged 19 – they don’t really appreciate a clean desk the same way I do, and we shall just say it is a challenge! We recently added the 3rd desk in so that Maxwell has his own laptop area and with the leftover bookcase from our sitting room reno, the room was very cramped and generally a dumping pit.

Some before pics!

Various stages of the declutter and moving out of furniture and everything!

BOY zone







Patch It Crack Filler

Monsta Patch It Crack Repair


With all of the cracks and picture hook holes to fill, we thought we would give the Monsta Patch It a whirl. Patch It is for surfaces that need to be filled, patched and repaired, allowing interior, exterior and even immersed surfaces to be safely repaired on all types of DIY and Home reno projects. We found it easy to use and fairly quick to dry. Within 4 hours we were able to paint over the top. You can also screw through, sand, saw into, glue onto, plug through, hook into, tile over, and cover with wallpaper!

Other things about the Patch It

✓ It handles weather and constantly wet conditions, even under water
✓ Bonds to a damp surface
✓ Spreads easy with spatulas, trowels and putty knifes
✓ Super strong when dried
At first John added a bit too much water, but it was easy to continue adding the Patch It powder into the water until we achieved the right consistency. You want it to be quite thick so that it does not drip when you use it in the cracks.






Once dry we were able to attach our pegboard to the main wall and paint over all of the areas we had used the Patch It. John was impressed and said it has a mortar quality to it. It had no problems in filling all of the cracks we had in the room.

Pegboard ideas for your office and using wood wash to upcycle furniture, plus painted floorboards and a lovely fiddle leaf fig!

Pegboard ideas for your office and using wood wash to upcycle furniture, plus painted floorboards and a lovely fiddle leaf fig!Monsta Colour Wash in Grey

If you saw our lounge makeover, you will have read about the Monsta Colour Wash. I used the white on the big old bookcase we have in that room. In this room, I decided to use the grey to bring this old fireplace surround to life, as a shelf above my desk. I got the fireplace on gumtree for free many years ago. We cut the legs off and now it is attached to a piece of pegboard we salvaged, and is such a lovely feature. I am very happy with the finish. The wash was really easy to use on this piece and I applied 2 light coats, so that some of the timber grains show through. Monsta Colour Wash provides a soft whitewash effect over surfaces applied to. Unlike traditional paints, the Monsta Colour Wash Series is translucent, e.g. not opaque. Ideal for timber surfaces to contrast the woodgrain.

bookcase painted in white wash by Monsta

My Bookcase White Wash

pegboard we found on the roadside

Pegboard ideas for upcycling and use in office

I painted the peg board and used the grey wash on the fireplace surround

Pegboard ideas for your office and using wood wash to upcycle furniture, plus painted floorboards and a lovely fiddle leaf fig!




Monsta Ceiling White and Sharp White Wall Paint

Because this room can be quite dark, we decided to use colour on one wall – the one with the pegboard – and paint the rest in white. This was also so that the green was mirrored as you look through to the sitting room at the back. We tried the Monsta range of whites in Sharp White, semi gloss. It is a cool white which works with the silver grey floors and general feel of the room. They have a range of their own whites and can colour match any white you like. The paint is all low VOC and has no nasty smells. The Monsta paints come with the mould inhibitor, anti-bacterial and easy cleaning features as a standard inclusion.

The paint was beautiful to use – very creamy to apply, fast drying and a lovely finish. Being a colour lover I have not used white on other walls in the house in this makeover. We previously had Antique white in many of the rooms, which is a creamy yellow based white and I am not a huge fan.

On seeing the Sharp White, I actually love the look! It is crisp and clean and works well with our silver grey floor paint. Our walls are uneven and have varying surfaces. It worked well on all of them and was easy to wash up in water. We also used the ceiling white, which we had used in the lounge, and we are happy with the results. A good idea when choosing paint colours is to paint reasonable strips of your choice of colours on a few walls in the room. This allows you to see how light fall changes the colour. I recommend selcting from colour cards and then buying sample pots, before investing in the full tins of paint. Monsta offer free colour cards which are easy to order from their website.

Pegboard ideas for your office and using wood wash to upcycle furniture, plus painted floorboards and a lovely fiddle leaf fig!

This old chest of drawers was $10 at a garage sale – I painted in bright colours and it is now my lovely storage cupboard

Pegboard ideas for your office and using wood wash to upcycle furniture, plus painted floorboards and a lovely fiddle leaf fig!

I also painted the bookcase that had been above my desk, in fun colours so the boys have their own feature, along with the pin boards filled with our family memories

Pegboard ideas for your office and using wood wash to upcycle furniture, plus painted floorboards and a lovely fiddle leaf fig!

I used spray paint to brighten up this old chest of drawers we got at a country garage sale for $10!

Pegboard ideas for your office and using wood wash to upcycle furniture, plus painted floorboards and a lovely fiddle leaf fig!

Pegboard ideas for your office and using wood wash to upcycle furniture, plus painted floorboards and a lovely fiddle leaf fig!

John still has to add some cornice to the green wall – he has it ready to go when we start the next room

Pegboard ideas for your office and using wood wash to upcycle furniture, plus painted floorboards and a lovely fiddle leaf fig!

Pegboard ideas for your office and using wood wash to upcycle furniture, plus painted floorboards and a lovely fiddle leaf fig!

I am still playing with what I want on the pegboard but the good news is you can change it up as often as you like

Pegboard ideas for your office and using wood wash to upcycle furniture, plus painted floorboards and a lovely fiddle leaf fig!

I think family memories are important to have around you in your creative space

Pegboard ideas for your office and using wood wash to upcycle furniture, plus painted floorboards and a lovely fiddle leaf fig!
Pegboard ideas for your office and using wood wash to upcycle furniture, plus painted floorboards and a lovely fiddle leaf fig!

Pegboard ideas for your office and using wood wash to upcycle furniture, plus painted floorboards and a lovely fiddle leaf fig!

Getting rid of the old old old horrible venetian and pelmet and adding a roman blind has made it a new room!

Pegboard ideas for your office and using wood wash to upcycle furniture, plus painted floorboards and a lovely fiddle leaf fig!
Pegboard ideas for your office and using wood wash to upcycle furniture, plus painted floorboards and a lovely fiddle leaf fig!
Pegboard ideas for your office and using wood wash to upcycle furniture, plus painted floorboards and a lovely fiddle leaf fig!

Pegboard ideas for your office and using wood wash to upcycle furniture, plus painted floorboards and a lovely fiddle leaf fig!

I painted the floors in the same silver grey floorpaint as the rest of the house and it all now flows together

We are very happy with this new shared room! It certainly makes me smile when I get up and head into work each morning. We still need to add the cornice on the green wall and touch a few areas up.
Here is a summary of what we did:

  • filled all cracks with Patch It by Monsta
  • filled the large gap at the top of the extension wall with a flexible product that will help stop it separating again
  • used a new batten across the ceiling gap
  • painted the ceiling with Monsta Ceiling White
  • painted the walls with Sharp White by Monsta in semi-gloss
  • painted the feature wall and salvaged pegboard in Herbalist green
  • painted the old chest of drawers picked up at a garage sale with spray paints and the bookcase John made
  • painted the floors in the same silver grey paint as the other rooms
  • replaced the blind with a Roman Blind and filled all cracks around it with Patch It
  • painted the doors and all the trim in a white water based gloss
  • All items in the room are secondhand, salvaged or upcycled, except for my standing desk which my mum won in a contest, and of course the computers etc and the blind which are new

You can see the full range of products on offer from Monsta on their website. We will be using their whiteboard WriteWall paint on a wall in Maxwell’s room so stay tuned for that
Helen

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