Victorian Naturalist Office Reveal
When I came up with the Victorian Naturalist theme for my office, I was already deep into project “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie”, but in “If You Give Tamasen a Board” form. It snowballed from just throwing a desk and shelves on the wall to the very first room I have truly fully designed and put together!
The Room Story
I had been working a lot from home at the kitchen table during the first several months of the pandemic, which led to giving me a good deal of hip pain. The pain grew bad enough that I ended up going to physical therapy for a couple of months, which helped considerably, but I wanted to prevent it from coming back. I needed a more ergonomic solution. In addition to that, I desperately wanted a calming place to work and create amid the stress and difficulty of the pandemic.
The Room Theme
I settled on a Victorian Naturalist theme for the office - science-y, with a vintage botanical feel, but light and airy. A naturalist’s collection of items, but ethical – no stealing orchids or birds to extinction! I had a vintage butterfly poster that I wanted to hang in the room, and, being a scientist myself, a Victorian Naturalist theme seemed to be the perfect fit. I like to think that the scientist and writer, Rachel Carson, would have enjoyed this room for creating her beautiful prose; or that one of the first female paleontologists, Mary Anning, would have used this room to examine and display her fossil discoveries. I set off to create a room that my biologist and design-loving self would dream of, and this is what I came up with!
The Room Details
The star of the show is the shelves that are the workhorse of the room. These shelves hold so much but are pretty at the same time! I love that I can just grab anything I need from right above my work station. The variety of textures, patterns, and colors, each repeated across the shelves and around the room, really seems to tie it all together. Of course, the fossils, agate bookends, books on plants and birds, and living plants on display all contribute to the Victorian Naturalist theme. And let’s not forgot one of my most satisfying DIY moments – the hidden electronics shelf I installed below to corral all the cords and Wi-Fi odds and ends.
The desk is perfectly expansive – it’s so nice to have all this room! My favorite part is the vintage working microscope I have sitting next to me. The microscope is nice to have on hand for when I need to check out a suspicious spot or bug on one of my plant leaves, and it looks lovely in front of the mini gallery wall I have in the corner above the desk. I look forward to expanding the gallery wall upwards as I find more pieces to display.
I often make paint-stamped gift wrap, so the dowels hanging on the other side of the room are great for hanging the gift wrap or other art projects to dry. Phase two of this project is to put counters along this wall, so that corner will be a fantastic craft and gift-wrapping station. I had the magazine rack from Ikea in storage, and it was exactly what I needed for stashing various large flat items. The hanging creeping fig is a delightful pop of green to complete this corner.
I was so excited to find the mirror second-hand. I wanted a mirror where I could make a quick check of myself before hopping on a Zoom call, and for bouncing more light around for the plants. The vintage posters, the umbrella tree, and huge ZZ plant that I recently got as a birthday gift round out the Victorian Naturalist theme!
As I sit here in my comfy, beautiful chair typing this out, looking at the magnificent room around me, I am overwhelmed that I have this space. I could not have imagined how completely this room could have turned out like what I wanted. Now it’s time to use this Victorian Naturalist office to cook up more ideas worthy of its style!
