When we moved from our tiny 1 bedroom apartment to our 2 bedroom home last year, I was so excited about the prospect of having more space for Eddie and I to make use of. I wanted a guest bedroom, but at the same time I needed room for us to get work done on our desktops. The solution? A joint guest room/home office! When you’re living in a small space, rooms have to work overtime. Even though the room is quite small, I knew we could make it work - just meant we had to get creative with our use of space!

At our old place, Eddie and I had 2 separate desks in different rooms of the apartment. However I knew they wouldn’t look good together or make sense side by side in our new home. Instead, we decided to go with a two-person desk! It takes up less space than two bulky individual ones, and looks super sleek and cohesive as an added bonus. We lucked out in that the two Ikea tabletops we had our eyes on fit this wall absolutely perfect. We laid them on 2 white trestles with a small drawer unit in the middle for extra storage.

For the guest side of the room, my goal was to make it feel bright, cozy, and airy so that friends and fam staying with us would feel right at home. Gauzy curtains, an oversize wall hanging, comfy pillows and a sweet lil side table did the trick. My parents live in New York and I wanted to have a bed large enough for both of them when they visited - but I knew this corner couldn’t handle anything bigger than a twin size frame. That’s where this sneaky stackable bed came in! It’s actually two beds in one - we keep them stacked, but whenever we have more than one guest staying with us, we lift the top frame off the bottom and voila - two twin beds! The mattresses both fit inside it when stacked so we don’t have to worry about lugging out an extra from storage. If we only have one guest, the stacked beds are safe to lay on since the upper bed has small plastic feet which fit into holes on the lower bed. It really is a space saving genius hack!

Perks of having a joint guest bedroom/home office? The bed doubles as the perf spot for a lil break from work. Eddie and I totally use it as a daybed, whether it's to read a book, take a catnap, enjoy a cup of tea & snackie, or if I wanna get comfy while on my laptop.

I wanted to take advantage of the wall space we have in this room, so we hung brackets & Ikea Ekby Hemnes shelves (similar here) over Eddie’s desk. I just love styling a shelfie sitch! Books, plants, and framed photos are some of my fave pieces to decorate a shelf with.

For above my side of the desk, I hung two prints of mine from the Black & Blooms print shop - Wonderland and Summertime. I captured both photos in Venice Beach, they’re probs my fave print pairing in the shop! I wanted our home office to be relaxing and inspiring, a stress free yet functional space where Eddie and I could get creative and truly enjoy working from. These prints help achieve that! They make me smile and are a reminder of how grateful I am to have this small biz of mine, made possible thanks to readers and print shop customers like you.

In this corner I hung a ceramic wall hanging I made at a Gopi Shah x P.F. Candle Co workshop, a fan that was gifted to me by my dear friend Whitney Leigh Morris, an eye wall charm that I bought as a souvenir from Portland, and a lil print by The Grits with one of my fave sayings/songs. I actually named one of my prints after the song! You can hear Keep On the Sunny Side in the print shop playlist. A nice sized rubber tree and a terrarium I made at one of The Sill’s workshops for an added touch of green on the desk.

I need as much storage space as I can get, but I still want it to look attractive. This birch mini storage chest is so cute and keeps all the not-so-pretty office things organized and out of sight. I love playing around with height, so having another flat surface on top of the chest to style just brings the whole desk together.

Took us a while to finally tackle decorating the space, but I’m so thankful we did. It has made a world of a difference - I actually want to spend time in here now, whereas before it was pretty uninspiring and always seemed to be messy. Now it’s a space we’re both happy to work and relax in, and I like to think our guests are happier in here too :)