The before: The family of four originally thought of this garage, as well, a garage. “It was mainly used for storage, so we naturally accumulated a lot of junk over the years,” Heather says. “It took us months to clean it out before we could actually renovate. But once we were ready to go, everything happened pretty quickly—the project took a couple of months to finish, max.”
The inspiration: As far as childhood imagination goes, perception is everything. A simple cardboard box, for example, can morph into whatever is necessary in order to keep a storyline alive: a spaceship, a cave, a castle. Heather had this type of child’s play in mind as she updated the garage and aimed to encourage all of the fantasies her children could conjure up with some practicalities mixed in.
“I envisioned a magical space that my girls could grow with,” she explains. “I really wanted to use bold colors like blues, greens, and reds in fresh ways, while making room for desks, crafts, and lots of supplies. I hoped it could be a place that could get messy but still look great.”
Heather remembers that as soon as she saw a green desk and red task light at West Elm, the design had found its spark. “Those pieces were the jumping-off point,” she says.
Square footage: 475 square feet
Budget: Under $20,000
Main ingredients:
Green desks: West Elm
Red task lamps: West Elm
Tall blue light: West Elm
Custom storage wall with standing desk: California Closets
Frames: Framebridge
Needlepoints: Loop
Custom shades: Everhem (the HTH collaboration with Everhem)
Red desk chairs: IKEA
Bulletin boards: West Elm kids
