Eeeeep!

I can hardly contain my excitement today–we finally get to share with you one of our biggest projects as of late: Neal’s office/man cave. (You were probably wondering why I had showed you only one of our three bedrooms in the house thus far, hmmm? Don’t get your hopes up on the guest room though. It’s still under a mountain of boxes.)

As soon as we purchased our home, we jumped on Pinterest to stalk “masculine man cave” ideas for the room that would become Neal’s office. One thing was for sure: We both wanted a super dark, moody paint color.

(Shocked that “all-white walls” girl wanted to paint a room that is nearly pitch black? Hear me out!)

Our two spare rooms don’t get much natural light. When there’s not much natural light, I get sad and cranky. As you can imagine, it made me VERY cranky when we moved in and the walls were painted dark and dingy old lady beige. (SICK.)

But, I thought–what if we embraced the dark and shadowy?

When we thought about it, our very favorite hangouts, bars, and restaurants were dark and moody–why not run with it for the office? It would be VERY Don Draper. (Isn’t that a must for any man cave these days?)

If you’ve been following along for a while, you know this isn’t my first rodeo with dark paint. (More about my first go around in this post!) So obviously, I looked to Dutch Boy Paints (they have the BEST colors!) for our new color. I wanted an even darker navy hue than our previous bar cart wall–so we landed on “Grandeur Blue,” (# 431-7DB for easy reference!) which is a nearly black navy with a hint of green in it.

I’m in love.

We went with their top quality Platinum Paint & Primer product, which made  it a snap to get the whole room painted in just a couple of hours. (It also comes in their twist & pour container with  an awesome twist-off lid and  built-in pourable spout, making it sooo much easier to use, cleaner and mess free. This means a lot coming from me, you know.)

For supplies, we used a combination of Purdy brushes and rollers to tackle the project! We’re always happy with the quality of their products–the roller covers, like the Purdy White Dove, work really well to leave a smooth finish, but the brushes, such as the Purdy Clearcut Elite, are great for little details like tight corners of our little room and the edging along our white trim! You can also pick these up at your local Menards!

As you guys know, figuring out my whole “authentic decorating style” has been a journey. Sometimes I’ll go off on tangents and do everything at once, only to realize I decorated too fast and it didn’t come out the way I wanted it. One of the biggest things I struggle with is planning, so that’s where Dutch Boy Paints’ new “Simply Yours” tool tool came in handy.

You can easily pull together the colors you want to use, and keep it for reference along the way! I loved that I could see what accent colors paired best with our exact wall color! For accents, we landed on a deep burgundy (which you can see in the rug), a beautiful rich brown (which came to life in our leather chair!) and a pop of orange for accent color (Neal’s desk chair). If you’re a really visual person, it will definitely help you to bring your vision to life.

Plus, if you make your own color palette with the Simply Yours tool, you’ll be entered to win some cool  prizes at the end of the year, like a color consultation from a Dutch Boy Color & Design team member and a Dutch Boy prize pack!

Now that we had decided on colors, we were off to the races with decorating. Sticking with our “midcentury/Draper” theme, we sourced everything in the room from our favorite local vintage stores. This didn’t just allow us to make it one-of-a-kind, but it was WAY more affordable than buying everything new!

The stand out pieces is hands down this Eames style chair! Neal’s favorite thing to do is hide from me and watch football in his new chair. (Hm. Wait…)

Both the chair and side table (it’s so cool–it has a gold built-in ashtray, which obviously is now exclusively used as a beer holder) are from Velvet Goldmine. We scored the rug from West Town Re-Up and the desk is Dial M for Modern via Beehive Chicago. I love the pop of orange from the desk chair, and of course–what man cave would be complete without a deer head? (Both from Beehive Chicago as well!)

We couldn’t be happier with our little makeover! It makes me so happy every time I walk by it in the hallway and get a glimpse of it out of the corner of my eye. (I can’t believe we live here!)

A couple things still left before it’s totally finished: We’d love to get a cool light fixture, replace the blinds with bamboo versions, and hang more artwork! But, all in all, for just 2.5 months in, I think we’re off to a pretty good start  

Major thanks to: Kelly, for helping me photograph the office! Kira, as always, for your major design talents and helping me figure out how the heck to arrange the furniture in that little bitty room, and of course, Dutch Boy Paint and Purdy, for helping me bring our new home to life and for sponsoring this post!