The creation of my main-floor office is a fait accompli. After three weeks of full-time labour by my dedicated husband, John, I was able to move in with only two minor details outstanding: the installation of a threshold between the stone tile in the foyer and the office flooring, and purchasing a bookcase.
It's utter bliss not to have to manoeuvre stairs from the basement umpteen times a day. An added bonus is a view of the front garden through a window that opens to let in the spring air — it's manna for a bruised soul.
Besides painting, the most labour-intensive part of the transformation of this former 11 by 15-foot guest bedroom involved the flooring. We had to remove the dark green, deep pile, wall-to-wall carpet and then address the rather chewed-up subfloor.
The finish flooring I chose is one I wrote about a few weeks ago — Tarkett's FiberFloor, a loose-lay, fibreglass-based resilient sheet product available at most Canadian flooring outlets. I went with their Valentine design, part of Tarkett's "Easy Living" line, because it looks like 16-inch-square variegated metallic tiles in tones of cool pewter and warm mica. It was well priced, complements the new wall colour (a deep, neutral grey called "Metropolis" by Benjamin Moore), and goes well with my glass and steel modular office furniture.
‘Marble white’ on the ceiling and neutral grey ‘Metropolis’ on the walls give the office a contemporary feel. (ELIZABETH RAND-WATKINSON)
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As the flooring comes 12 feet wide by whatever length you need, there are no seams and, John says, it was reasonably easy to cut and lay down — no glue or taping was required. Before he could lay it, however, there was the subfloor to address.
Seeing how rough it was, both Gary, the Home Depot tiler who was working on the upstairs guest ensuite floor at the time, and the FiberFloor supplier, Sines Flooring in Cobourg, Ont., advised us to install a mahogany sheet product on top of the existing subfloor for a smoother finish.
Given the relative thinness of the finished flooring we were installing, an extra smooth subfloor was optimal and the sheets of mahogany, along with more than 300 screws, did the trick. It's a beautiful wood product that I'm sure would do wonders underneath all types of resilient flooring, probably even cork. It took John about eight hours to install the mahogany sheets and then measure and lay the FiberFloor sheet product.
Removing the thick carpeting had left a gap below the bottom edge of the baseboards that even the addition of the new subfloor layer and the FiberFloor didn't fill. To conceal the gap and finish the baseboard, John installed a door-stop moulding around the room instead of the usual quarter-round trim. The door-stop moulding — that's the trim you usually see installed inside standard door frames to stop doors from swinging both ways — was a practical solution that also gives the baseboard extra detail and dimension.
To house samples and supplies, the room's six-foot, four-inch-wide double-door closet was outfitted with shelves, the lower two of which go the full depth of the space. This will offer the most storage space I've ever had in a home office and the 48-inch-wide opening and a shallower top shelf makes everything easily accessible. Independently switched lighting that was already in the closet will make finding things a breeze even at night.
It took three coats of Para's "Marble white" semi-gloss trim paint to completely eradicate all evidence of the intense peach colour that had invaded every inch of the room, including three doors, all the trim, and every electrical outlet and switch plate cover.
One coat of "Marble white" ceiling paint and two coats of the aforementioned "Metropolis" for the walls — left over from John's bathroom renovation but perfect for this space, too — completed the room's transformation from steamy over-ripe peach to cool, crisp contemporary.
Finishing touches include white linen-look drapes, a chrome and "crystal" pendant light fixture, co-ordinating table lamps, a yellow armchair swiped from a guest bedroom, a beloved original oil painting entitled "Adam" by Ottawa artist John Carroll, and four signed mandallas by our late friend Robert Burns, a talented and well-known Toronto graphic designer who passed away in 2005.
And I mustn't forget another treasured piece, a framed cartoon drawn by Globe and Mail artist Brian Gable a few years ago to illustrate one of my columns.
Though it's modest by many measures, my new work space contains several favourite mementos and suits my work style better than any space I've ever had.
But what makes it truly special is how John laboured relentlessly to finish it for me at a time when a host of unfortunate personal and work-related issues were threatening to drive me over the edge for good.
For that reason alone, this is the office of my dreams.
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