Juliana C Stryker

Mar 11, 20143 min read

My New Home Office!

I remember being extremely drawn to Samantha’s sleek Manhattan office in the Sex and the City 2 movie (even though she was performing some pretty salacious act at the time. Haha!)

The clean stylish Vitra desk, ultra-thin monitor, all-white accessories and of course, sweeping views of Times Square were so chic!

Even though it’s been four years, I still can’t get over it.

And since I can’t afford a Vitra desk and a fancy city office, I decided to set up a Samantha-inspired home office instead! Eh.. with a little Juliana twist to it. 😛

Click to find out how I assembled my home office from scratch in just ONE day! This was my previous office.

I know the mess was unforgiving but the space isn’t!

I was working on a small dining table in the living room which was a huge inconvenience when we need to dine or when we had guests over.

Also, working on a 13-inch laptop whilst sitting at a desk required me to lean forward which inadvertently put a lot of strain on my spine and lower back. The close proximity also caused eye strains which led to throbbing headaches. So I guess it was time to look for ergonomically smart solutions – like a new office? 😛

I can’t afford to rent a full office space yet so while I was scratching my head for a quick fix, my (very loving) fiancé offered to turn his most favorite spot in the house – the Chill Out room into my office!

Awww… I’m so glad I’m marrying this man. ❤❤❤

ANYWAYS!

This is the original Chill Out room.

I already knew I wanted an office like Samantha Jones’ or something like these. So the first thing I needed to do was to get a new desktop.

August 24 2013, 6.10pm, NuBox CausewayPoint

Computer shopping I chose this 21.5-inch: 2.9GHz iMac which was retailing at SGD2088.

I knew I was going to break the bank that evening with more office-related purchases so I decided to go on a 12-month interest-free instalment plan at Nubox using our DBS credit card.

Since our wallet was not entirely wrecked, we moved on to our next shopping haven – IKEA which houses a bevy of affordable designs to fit our theme.

8.00pm, IKEA Tampines

We had our favorite IKEA meatballs for dinner before we continued our mission.

After tons of shopping and some careful budgeting…

… we got everything we wanted and needed!

Here’s our unpacked office. 🙂

10.00pm, Home

After much scruffling, unpacking and moving, we managed to turn this…

… into this!

August 25 2013, 12.00am, Home

I chose dark coloured office furniture and accessories to go with my fiancé’s existing DVD shelves.

But I still wanted to retain the beauty and bustle of New York City in my space. Since there’s no way I’m going to have a Times Square view, I decided to keep the Manhattan canvas with the Flatiron building as my backdrop.

😛

The final ensemble.

I bought the TORNLIDEN desk for SGD169 and the SKRUVSTASwivel chair for SGD199.

My fiancé also surprised me with a mousepad that has my company logo on it from Zazzle.com. Think it costs less than SGD30 including shipping.

The mousepad was a perfect gift as gliding on the rough surface of the desk was quite a chore.

And what’s better than working with your very own personalised stationery? Thanks B!

Also got this very useful RISSLA Desk organiser (SGD19.90) to store the stationery and office paraphernalia.

Bought this TRÅL Work lamp that resembles the Pixar Lamp for SGD55.

These gorgeous pine wood texture magazine files caught my attention so I got them too.

KNUFF Magazine File (SGD9.99 for two).

Bought this stylish-looking Canon PIXMA MG3170 printer from the Apple Store for less than SGD200. I couldn’t remember the exact price. 🙁

Can’t forget the storage. Bought two KVARNVIK Boxes for SGD35.90 each.

And unwanted storage too. KNODD Bin for SGD25.

Can’t do much about the unsightly wires that are hanging around but I can certainly neaten the look with cable winders from Popular Book Store.

Where are Samantha’s wires??!?

Tadah! And there you have it!

A productive home office (for under SGD3000) set up in just a day!

Many great things such as the creation of HoneyzCube.com‘s new layout, beauty event ideas (Pamper Party, Tea Party, etc.) and even our mobile app idea were conceptualised in this room.