Like many others around the world, the pandemic forced Annette Vartanian and her family into a unique working situation. With offices closed, Vartanian suddenly found herself sharing a workspace with her husband and school-aged daughter. So they fast-tracked plans to convert a space on the second floor of their mid-century home. 

Instead of keeping the area above the carport a “weird cutout space that would go unused”, Vartanian set her sights on creating a “highly functional” home office. 

“Though I’ve always worked from home and moved around from spot to spot, I wanted a dedicated space I could leave behind at the end of the day,” she explained. Still, the goal was for the room to look just as aesthetically pleasing as the rest of the house. 

Making room for two

Rather than arrange two desks in the room, Vartanian chose to create one long desk divided into two dedicated workspaces, one for her and one for her husband. 

The desk unit is made with IKEA Sektion kitchen cabinet bases (selected because they’re wider and taller than dedicated office pieces) and topped with Semihandmade DIY Slab fronts. 

Creating hidden storage

Thanks to the wider, taller cabinets, Vartanian was able to create the large amount of hidden storage she was looking for. We didn’t want a lot of stuff on our desktop, creating a cluttered office-like vibe, she explained. 

Just about everything you see in the office is there for aesthetics—the more functional items are tucked out of sight. “The bottom drawer of the desk conceals my printer, there are important paperwork and files on my husband’s side, the top drawers hold daily essentials, and the tall cabinet houses photography equipment, crafting stuff, and more,” she says. 

Utilizing unique spaces

The staircase up to the office area has an eye-catching maze of bookshelves crafted out of Semihandmade DIY Slab Floating Shelves. “The idea of the floating shelves came out of necessity, because husband has thousands of books,” she says. 

Bringing it all together

To give the whole space a custom built-in vibe that looks more like a library than your typical office, Vartanian chose a moody dark blue (Deepest Sea by Dunn Edwards) that coats the walls, cabinetry, and shelves. 

She also swapped out traditional office furniture in favor of thrifted finds. Rather than mesh chairs, Vartanian and her husband sit in a pair of vintage dining chairs. And many of the tchotchkes hold significance. “Most of what you see are things I’ve collected over the years, whether from travel or local flea markets,” she says.