Study Renovation

As seems to be the case with most home renovation, the greatest time and expense spent on my study went on sights unseen - fixing leaks, insulation, plastering.  This meant that there was little left to spend on decoration, so a lot of thrift and DIY came into play in fixing up this room. 
The mirror pictured above was a cheap wood mirror we had lying around which I spray painted gold.  On the bookshelves are long-held possessions that fit the Victorian theme of the room; old copies of National Geographic, my partners history of magic books and some old apothecary bottles. 
I love the aesthetics of the Victorian era.  All those nods to colonial exploration in the orient.  Natural history, rich fabrics, nautical memorabilia.  My study is fairly small so I discarded the originally intended darker colour palette of burgundy and oak - the fixings of an opium den - and instead opted for whites and eggshell blues, with lots of gilding to reflect light.  I've enjoyed collecting things together for this room.  The difficulty of sourcing taxidermy butterflies inspired me to start importing and selling them myself.

Here I gathered together our framed map of the world, globe lamp and brass spyglass, compass and sextant.  Housing the CD collections of my partner and I are shelves that I rescued from the footpath outside a kindergarten.  The filing cabinet was concrete bunker grey, now spray painted eggshell blue.