January is a time for fresh starts, new goals, and a lot more indoor time due to all the wintery weather. The studio, library and workspace is a favourite place in the home to spend time and tackle the new year.

A quiet space to spread out, be creative, and work on projects over time is a lovely way to purpose a room in the home. This room is tucked away so tidying up after each session isn’t a must, as it is out of sight for guests and the main living area.

The oversized desk is facing a large window letting lots of natural light fill the room. This makes it a great space to work in during the daytime, especially when working on project visuals and colour or paint choices.   The desk is assembled from an oversized kitchen countertop resting on two warm white filling cabinets. This provides a big work surface to spread out projects, notebooks, and accessories as sources of inspiration. Instead of a typical desk chair, a super comfy alternative is pulling up an oversized upholstered armchair to the desk.

The library of books is loaded on floor to ceiling bookcases inset into one corner of the room. These shelves are full and functional and not minimal or sparse! The books are arranged by the colour of their spine to help calm down the busy view. A stash of pretty notebooks and a few sentimental pieces also help add interest to the shelf arrangement.

Functional natural tone baskets are are used for organizing in the room, including a blessing basket from Ghana and a French market bag picked up in a little Paris shop. The fiddle leaf fig tree is happy in the sunny corner of the room and occasionally fresh cut flowers are set on the desk to enjoy while working away.

Around the room is the start of a gallery wall of framed art and a cheerful quilt titled ‘Up, Up and Away’. The quilt has two beautiful sides so every now and then the sides can be flipped for a different look. A vintage glass drop light is hung in the centre of the room. This pretty light was repurposed, originally from the dining room in the home. The warm colours and classic floral scroll pattern of the wool crewel area rug anchor the room.

This busy and active room serves as a studio, library and home workspace and works as the perfect creative indoor setting.