A Two-Day Room Makeover in the CLJ Studio

Do you have one of those spaces that you know you need to tackle, whether it’s a room pilling up with stuff or a space that could be better utilized if you turned it into something else?

Well we had a space that checked both of those boxes in the CLJ Studio. It’s a room that has been a lot of things—a storage room, a private office, an inventory surplus room…and it really needed some TLC to live up to more of its true potential. (Cue inspiring Hoosiers speech.)

One of the problems was that we didn’t really have an intention for the space, and I think therein lies the problem. When a space is a “catch-all” for everything, it doesn’t really feel like it’s great for anything. Just like we say in the Good Influence(r) program, we needed to “niche down”!

That’s when it came to me: Since starting the Good Influence(r) Podcast a few months ago (check it out on Spotify, YouTube or Apple), I’ve been recording most of the episodes out of our house. But with the construction on the first floor it has been…very loud to say the least.

What if we had a spot where the recording equipment is always out? What if we set out to make this underutilized space a podcast room? That was the ticket!

Chris Loves Julia podcast room with three wingback chairs, floor lamps, and a rug

Giving the room a dedicated name removed the mental block around upgrading the space. From there, it was like “all systems go”—we updated the whole space over couple of days!

Here is everything we did to make this room feel less like an office space and more like a room in our home. I’ll also give a quick budget overview at the end, so you can get an idea of how little we spent to make such a big difference!

Adding Drama with Wallpaper

Chris installing wallpaper in an office room

Chris and I spent part of a Tuesday putting up some dark burgundy peel-and-stick wallpaper, the Nova pattern in Carob Brown from our wallpaper line with WallPops. This is great for an office space because it’s removable later on! It took us about 4 hours to wallpaper the room once we got into the rhythm! Chris would line it up at the top, and I would match up the pattern on the edges. Then he smoothed it down with the wallpaper smoothing tool. We almost ran out of wallpaper, but I was able to use some scraps to fill in the gaps.

Styling the Room with Furniture

To make the room feel more traditional and moody, I found these beautiful navy wingback chairs with a higher seat. These will be great for filming the podcast, since it’s hard to slouch in them!

While I love our Stuga floors elsewhere throughout the office, I decided to put in an oversized rug to soften up the space. This is a vintage rug that I was gifted from the Loloi family and it actually inspired the creation of the Jules Ocean/Spice rug we added to our collection last year. Too often, I see rugs on the small side for a room. This one is only a few inches from the edges of the room, but that makes it feel more enveloping and cozy. We added side tables for each chair that can be used for beverages, laptops, and notes or whatever we need during filming or if someone is having a business meeting in here.

Creating Soft Lighting

Navy chairs in a moody podcast room with floor lights

Rule No.1 in this room? Never, ever turn on the overhead lights! (See the difference in that pic above with Chris installing the wallpaper?!) The UV-style overhead lighting isn’t something we’ll change in this office, but we can add in a lot of lamps in different heights. I like to think that this space could be used as a low-stim workroom for the rest of the team when we’re not recording.

I think when you’re filming any video, using natural light is always thought of as best practice. However, that can be difficult when you can’t control that natural light. The fact that this room didn’t have any windows (except one by the door that opens to the office) felt like a good place for the podcast studio.

Julia and Gabby recording in the CLJ podcast room

The Total Cost of the Project

Here is what it added up to (without counting the podcast equipment we already had):

10 rolls of CLJ Nova Carob Brown Peel-and-Stick Wallpaper: $420 (one more roll would have been helpful!)
Rug: Vintage, borrowed from our home (a gift from Loloi but you can find similar here)
3 Wingback Chairs: $2,040
Table lamp & shade: $65
Floor lamp: Bought years ago for our home
Side tables: $465

Grand total: $2,990 – which included using a couple of items we already had. I’m a big proponent of shopping your own house!

Mood board for the CLJ Studio Podcast Room

A Little Preview of What’s Next

On one of the episodes of the Good Influence(r) Podcast, two of my sisters recorded with me, and we talked about what it’s like to work with family. We had so much fun that we’re thinking about launching a totally separate podcast that shares how to build on your adult creativity. So stay tuned for that!