Excitement is in the air…er, all over Instagram. Why? The Spring ORC starts today! If you don’t know what the ORC is, check out my last post here. And if you want to follow along other creators or DIYers like me, check out the ORC blog here.

For the next eight weeks, I’ll be tackling what is currently our music room and turning it into my new home office. There isn’t anything truly wrong (structurally) with my current office, but it has no doors and is right next to the front door, so we have multiple dog gates set up to keep the dogs out while I’m not working and keep the dogs in when I need to answer the door. Oh, and it has a pink carpet inlay. But that’s a topic for another day.

The room of requirement

So far, I’ve given y’all two clues regarding the theme of my new office space. Have you figured it out yet?

I have a few requirements for my new office space:

• Doors to close off the space
• Built-in cabinets and bookshelves to store all office-related things (and some other fun stuff)
• A big window for the dogs
• A new desk that isn’t three times the size I need it to be
• No popcorn ceiling

I have very minimal requirements. I also have a list of things I’d love to see in the room but may not be feasible:

• An enchanted ceiling
• Window bench seating for the dogs
• An electric fireplace
• Some hidden nooks and crannies

Regardless of what I’m able to accomplish, I’m just excited (and nervous!) to get started.

The (current) plan

If you haven’t guessed by now, this room will be modeled after my Harry Potter obsession. I love all things Harry Potter and have amassed quite the collection of memorabilia and trinkets over the years.

Here is what the music room* looked like when we purchased the house (you’ll have to go to Instagram to see the current state):

As you can hopefully see, the room is a nice size and has great natural light. But there are recessed lights only on one side of the room (top right of the picture), and that’s it. The lighting (or lack thereof) decisions in this house baffle me sometimes.

And yes, the carpet is a nice zebra print (again, not our choice). The carpet will most likely stay for now as this room is connected to the living room, and we haven’t budgeted to replace the floors. Of course, if paint gets spilled on the carpet, that’s a different story…

Looking at the second picture, I plan for the built-in cabinets and bookshelves to be on the right wall. My desk will be in the middle, perpendicular to the window. If I go the fireplace route, I’m thinking in the corner over to the left, but we’ll see. My biggest focus will be the built-in cabinets and bookshelves.

I’ll hopefully be hiring out to remove the popcorn ceiling (unless that number comes back and is astronomical) and have an electrician install lighting in the middle of the room. I plan to make the ceiling appear magical, but you’ll have to wait and see how that works out.

The mood board

And here’s the current mood of my Harry Potter-inspired home office.

Will there be floating candles? Access to the Ministry of Magic or Diagon Alley? I guess you’ll have to follow along here and on Instagram.

^{*It’s called the music room because we have a piano in here. Blake and I both played piano as kids, but not as adults, so clearly, it gets a lot of use.}