- Okay guys. So it's
about time for the reveal. I've been working on this
office for a whole month now. And Clair's about to walk in and I'm really excited
to see her reaction.Clair Okay. You ready? - No. (laughs) - This is like my best work so far, okay. - Oh my gosh! - 1, 2, 3. - What? Oh my god! (soft music) - So my
wife Clair works full time from home and her office is quite a mess. It's amazing to know that she
built her consulting business out of this space, but if it was me, I would not be able to focus here. You may think that she doesn't
prioritize organization and aesthetics, but in reality, she's just been so busy as a new mother and working full time running her business after moving in last year. So I think it's about time to help her out with a complete office makeover. She gave me complete freedom to design it exactly the way I wanted it
as if it was my own office. So after a lot of hard work and figuring out what
works best in the set up, I'm super excited to share
with you guys to build process, all the key decisions,
changes, and tips and tricks that I made to this space
to fully work for her needs as a tech entrepreneur. Hopefully this room transformation will give you guys some
good inspiration and ideas as to what can be the
best work from home setup for yourself. Because I think that
having a nice home office is more important than ever before. Also, if you find the video helpful, remember to like and subscribe
to support the channel. And without further
ado, let's get started. So as always, the first
step would be to clean and declutter the room
to get a fresh start and know what we're working with. Although the room is small, I think there's some cool
things we can do here. I like how the walls are all white and we're gonna keep it that way 'cause I'm kind of lazy and
don't want to repaint it. For the design of this room, I wanted it a more modern,
minimalist, and natural look to make it relaxing and clutter-free. So I went on the internet and
gathered pictures of rooms and themes that I liked and
organized them into Notion as my mood board. I really liked the light themed rooms, pairable with wood and some plants for a natural and calming vibe. So for the main wall,
which is the feature wall, I was inspired by this
Japanese minimalist style. So I wanted this to be a slat wall. And instead of cutting each
piece of word of myself, I got these pre-made
acoustic slat wall panels from The Wood Veneer Hub. We chose the panels with the
natural oak and gray felt because it matches perfectly with the light and natural
theme that we're going for. Out of the box, they are really
long, around 94 inches tall. So the only thing I had
to do was to cut it down to the right height. Now this may sound easy, but the installation
requires a lot of measuring, power tools, muscle, and math power. So once again, I had to
recruit my friends to help out. And trust me, doing this alone is not fun so having an extra pair of hands
is gonna save a lot of time and it's just gonna be a
more enjoyable process. I thought my friend was really smart because he used to be a draftsman
doing construction stuff. So he did most of the measuring and everything was going pretty well until there was this difficult part where we had to do a more
complex cut in the corner. And that's where we kind of messed up. - Why is this not going in? (laughs) What happened here? Why
is there this much gap? (laughs) What did you do? - I don't know. I measured twice. - So ideally, we will measure twice in
everything and only cut once. However, he measured
twice from the wrong spot, but that's okay. In the grand scheme of things,
it's a really small thing. Anyways, he redeemed himself after that. Moving along, we had to
add supports on the wall. This helps secure the panels to the wall and it gives space in
between the wall and the felt to optimize sound absorption. This is gonna help all of
Clair's Zoom calls a lot and that's because this
room is really echo-y. (singing) - It's like singing in the shower. - Anyways, installing the rest of
the panels was a breeze. I love how fast and simple it was. Each panel joined to
the next one seamlessly, making this amateur job look pro. So if I can do it, anyone can do it. It's quite amazing what a
difference these panels can make. I think it kind of makes
the room look kind of taller with the slats being vertical. And initially, I planned to
cover it on the whole wall. However, we ended up leaving
a quarter of it empty. There's a lot of things we can do with that empty space later on. But now that I have the
feature wall completed, it's time to work on the
main thing in the room, the desk set up. For her desk, we chose
to get the Sway Desk from Ergonofis. It's a solid wood,
motorized, standing desk. It is 60 inches wide by 30 inches deep, which is a pretty big desk and we'll give her plenty
of space to work on. I gotta say though, this solid
wood desk is super heavy. Even with two people. It
was tough to flip over. I mean, look at this guy's face. We should probably go to the gym more. The cool thing about the desk is that it has an
integrated touch interface in the lower right corner of
the desk to control the height. It's super useful how there
are two programmable settings for it to move automatically and that it can adjust as low
as 23 inches from the ground. I think this is gonna be great for Clair because she's on the shorter side. Anyways, I just love how this looks. The entire desktop is beautifully crafted out of solid cherry wood. And using this as the
foundation of the setup really adds to the natural
aesthetic to the space and I think this is gonna fit perfectly with all of the other things on her desk. As for desk accessories, the goal for these things is
to help her keep everything clean, organized, and functional
so that it's clutter-free and everything she
needs is at arm's reach. So this is a desk organizer from Artifox. It's made out of white oak,
which matches the desk nicely. It also has a metal top, which works with Artifox's
magnetic accessories like these pegs over here. I think it's a pretty clever design how the solid oak base
can be used for storage to hold pens, scissors. And the magnets are even strong enough to hold up books and stuff like that to neatly store and
display whatever you want. I also got her these Artifox paper trays. The trays are stackable and it's made of pretty
heavy duty material. And we're going to use them as drawers in the middle part of the shelf over here to easily store and organize things as I know that she usually has
a lot of stuff on her desk. So right now, I think there's
too much wood going on. So we're gonna add a bit of
contrast and visual structure to the desk by using a desk pad. I think this natural wool
material is super soft to the touch. This one is made out of
Merino Wool Felt by Grovemade. We chose to use a medium
plus size to protect and cover just enough of the desk, making it a nice accent to her desk and her keyboard and mouse. As for her laptop, she's been using the M1 MacBook Air, and she likes placing it below her monitor to use as a second screen
and to use the webcam. The neat accessory she's been using is the MOFT Invisible Cooling Stand. It's hidden underneath her laptop and it just quickly folds
out to get the laptop screen to the right height. The stand also helps cool down the laptop using Graphene Cooling Technology. It conducts heat away
from the laptop surface. And this whole thing can be
easily removed and attached. So that's pretty cool. Next, her keyboard of
choice is the NuPhy Air60. It's a super compact and ultra-slim wireless mechanical keyboard, which saves a lot of space and
fits nicely with her laptop, which is also set up on her desk. The keyboard also has
hot, swappable switches and it lights up. She's actually using the brown
switches for the most part when typing and replace the arrow keys with the blue click-y switches so that she can tap on it
for fun when she's bored. As for the mouse, she loves using the Logitech MX Anywhere 3 because it fits her small hands perfectly. On the side, we have the
Brass Notepad by Grovemade. This is made of solid brass so it feels super premium and heavy. I also use this on my own desk and I love how I can quickly make lists and quick notes on them. It's just so satisfying
to cross things off and feel productive and
even keep separate lists to keep organized. Next, I got her these modular, solid wood organization
trays from OakyWood. They've got magnets built in
on the side of them as well so you can quickly
connect and configure them in any way that you want. The little trays are gonna be
perfect for like paperclips and small things. And the bigger trays are gonna be great for storing pens and glasses, making them organized and
easily accessible on her desk. Moving along, this is the Q0 by Keychron. It's a customizable, mechanical numpad. This little guy feels
super well built and heavy. The switches are hot swappable as well. And we have the one
that is fully assembled with the blue click-y switches. So when Clair works on her
spreadsheets and finances, it's gonna be extra satisfying
punching the numbers in. The numpad does need to
be connected to a wire for it to work. So I'll have it stored
under the desk shelf to get it out the way when it's not in use and it's still easily
accessible when she needs it. So Clair records a lot of
tutorials for her clients, so she needs a dedicated
microphone to up her game. This is the Elgato Wave:3 Mic and the Elgato Low Profile Mic Arm. The mic is a broadcast-level
grade microphone that's super easy to use. The funny thing is that the
mic arm and the shock mount actually came in the color black. So I thought it was a good
idea to spray paint it white to better match the setup. And you know, I'm quite
happy with how it turned out. Anyways, it has a tactile knob
in front to control volume, adjust the headphone
volume, and the crossfade between the mic mix and the computer mix to decide how much of
yourself you want to hear versus all the other audio
that you hear in your mix. There's also a touch sensor on the top to silently mute to the mic. So it's nice to control
all of these things right on the mic itself. As far as charging her phone, we're gonna use the PITAKA MagEZ Slider. So this is basically a
wireless charging phone stand and you can also spin it
around a lot if you're bored. However, there's actually
a reason for that. When you spin it to the back, you can actually place your earbuds there to charge it wirelessly. And you can also plug
in another attachment to charge an Apple Watch. However, the best feature of the stand is that it has a detachable
Mag Safe power bank that you can keep attached to your phone so that you can keep it charged
when you need to go out. And if you're wondering how
I'm keeping all this tech on her desk connected, I'm using the Anker
Thunderbolt 4 Mini Dock which is hidden right behind
her laptop under the shelf. The dock has three Thunderbolt
4 ports at the back. This makes it very easy
to cable manage everything and keep the cables
hidden behind the desk. And at the front of the unit, it has another Thunderbolt 4 port. It provides 85 Watts of
power to the MacBook Air to keep it charged. So I really like how this
gives a clean look on her desk, giving her a one cable connection setup. And on the side to compliment her desk, we're using the Ergonofis
Neat Filing Cabinet with the solid cherry wood panels as well. It's super handy to keep less
used items at arm's reach. And the best feature may just
be the soft close drawers. Anyways, the top of the
cabinet looks a bit empty. So I added some Artifox magazine
holders for extra storage, as well as that OakyWood catch-all tray to make better use of the space. And to make the space even more natural, of course I had to add some
plants on the side as well. I think looking at plants
or something that green really helps relax the eyes. So it's gonna be nice
for her to take a break. Just staring at the plants. And by the way, everything
I mentioned in this video is linked in the description below. So if there's something that
you like in today's video, you can check that out afterwards. Now that the desk set up is complete. There's the rest of the room to work on. For the wall in front of her desk, I wanted to build out a shelf
to use as storage for her, and we went with the idea of
building a giant peg board. I've always wanted to do this, but man, I didn't know how much work this required. There was a lot of designing involved and we ended up using
two boards instead of one because we couldn't fit a
huge board into the car. In making this, there was a
lot of measuring, sanding, and a lot of drilling involved. Each board is 84 inches in
height and 30 inches in width. So it's bigger than Clair's desk and we need to drill 52
1-inch holes in each board. It wasn't easy to drill the holes, even with the right tools. We needed two people to
drill through the board. Maybe we're doing something wrong, but I'm super glad that I
had my friends to help out. I could not have done this alone, especially when it came to
installing it on the wall. Three people is a must. It's important to have
two people holding it and pushing it against the wall to get it into the right place and
make sure it's level. And then you have me who has the easy job of drilling it into place. Although it was tough and this project probably
took around 30 hours, the end result is definitely worth it. We were just so happy when
both boards looked straight and leveled on the wall. I'm sure this project gave the three of us lots of bro bonding time, and they found it very satisfying to know that we made this ourselves. However, I don't know if
they would agree to do this with me again knowing
how much work it takes. Anyways, I actually
filmed the entire process of making this. Let me know if you wanna
see a dedicated video on building this in the comments below. Moving along, I made the shelves from the extra material that I had and I made the pegs
from a long 1-inch dowel and I just had to cut the
pegs into the right length. These were pretty easy to make. So I had a bunch of them
ready to decorate the board. The pegs fitted and the
holes pretty snugly. I had to hammer them in, and
placing the shelf on them feels quite secure. I know Clair likes blue so this is a good chance
to add that accent color in the room along with
some plants from Ikea. I purposefully chose
easy-to-maintain plants and even fake plants so
that she wouldn't have to take care of them. 'Cause every plant she took
care of before always dies. Wow, that went dark real fast. Anyways, I placed things
she would use frequently in the middle. Also before I had install the pegboard, I plugged in an extension cord so that we can run a
power cable for the Alexa behind the board. And I found that using
this to hold backpacks and bags are super handy. It's just a great way to place them when you enter the room
to keep it off the floor, I made another shelf to hold
tools that she uses less often, but are still very accessible. So I love how this peg
board is super customizable and everything that's
placed on the shelves just looks like it's very intentional and that they belong there. Hopefully this will keep
the room more organized in the long run. As for the last side of the room, I decided to use the
leftover slat wall panels and cut them into half to decorate it so that it doesn't look too empty and it gives contrast to
the wall that we left blank. To install it, I just hammered nails into the wall and this actually secured
the panels pretty nicely. So this took a lot less time to install. So this looked pretty good. However, upon closer inspection, my woodworking skills isn't awesome. So there's a lot of
flaws and uneven panels. So I decided to remove a long strip from one of the extra panels and make it long edge piece
to hide all the imperfections. And I think this looks
even better than before and I'm quite happy with it. Next, I wanted to make
use of the space above. so we're gonna add a
whiteboard and another shelf. We mounted the whiteboard
using command strips on the four corners behind the whiteboard. Installing it this way was super simple 'cause I wasn't scared of
not installing it perfectly. We can always just pull it
off and we adjust the angle to make sure it's level. Next, this is the Artifox wall shelf. This is made of solid
steel so it's quite heavy. It does come with these
heavy duty wall anchors so installing it on the
wall wasn't too hard. To decorate the space a bit, I added a little dangling
plant on the shelf along with an air purifier
and another plant below to make it look a bit more
natural and aesthetic. The last piece I added
where these Artifox pegs. I think it ties in nicely
with the wood panels. I tried to put it on the whiteboard, but it just kind of slides off. But it works perfectly
with the solid steel shelf. The magnets on this is even strong enough to hold up headphones. So I think this combo looks great and it's gonna be useful
to hold whiteboard markers and stuff like that. But I'll let Clair figure that out. The room is almost complete, but it's just missing one crucial thing which is smart lighting. When designing rooms and desk setups, I always look for easy
spots to hide my lights to get ambient lighting. And the first place in this setup would be behind the slat walls. I'm using this neon rope light from Govee. And I'm using this because
there isn't much distance between the panels and the wall and I want to avoid
seeing the individual LEDs like I would if I used
normal light strips. To install this, I drilled the little plastic mounts that hold the rope lights
into the wooden supports on the wall. It was easy to install vertically as I just had to hang it from
those supports on the side. And for the bottom parts, I just tucked in the rest
above the floor trims. And the final result is amazing. I think this is one of the thing
that sets most rooms apart. There's a ton of lighting
effects that you can choose from in the Govee app. But I like sticking with a plain
and simple warm white color to get a natural glow. Next, we have the peg wall. I used a 32-feet long Govee light strip, and this was actually
quite easy to install. I just stuck that adhesive
on the light strip onto the back of the board. I'm really glad that I installed that extension cable
before to make this happen. And finally, we have the desk set up. To light up the desk, I just installed two
Philips Hue Light Bars behind the monitor and
one LIFS Light Strip behind the desk on the cable tray. As for the corner, it
was a bit dark as well. So I placed the light
behind the magazine holders to light it up. So after installing all
this ambient lighting, I really think it took
everything that we've done so far to the next level. And by the way, as for little things to
improve the setup even further, proper cable management
is always nice to have. So for this setup, I'm using the cable tray from Ergonofis. The tray is made
specifically for this desk and it's installed
directly under the table. It was quite easy to hide
the cables behind the monitor and the desk shelf and
secure them on the cable tray with the zip ties. The other little thing we had to do was to hide away all the
shiny parts of the screws from the panels. We had to cut out little
strips from the felt and cover every single one
of them to complete the look. Although Clair might not
notice stuff like this, I know that I would be bothered by it every single time I enter her office. So this is definitely a good
long-term investment for me so that I can enjoy a nice looking wall for a long, long time. So before we show Clair the
office for the first time, if you guys like what
you're seeing so far, I've made a lot of other
desks set up videos that I think you'll like to watch as well. So remember to like and subscribe with the notification bell turned on to see more content
like this in the future. - Okay, guys. So it's
about time for the reveal. I've been working on this
office for a whole month now. And Clair's about to walk in and I'm really excited
to see her reaction. Okay. You ready? - No. (laughs) - This is like my best work so far, okay. - Oh my gosh! - 1, 2, 3. - What? Oh my god! (upbeat music) Babe, how did you do
all this? It's so nice! - So you think this looks good right now? Okay, check this out. Alexa , hello. (angelic singing) - When did your time to
put in all these lights? Where did you find all these
plants that I'm gonna kill? - There's a lot more space
in here, isn't there? - This was just like all
blank and white with nothing. - Actually it was filled
up with your stuff. (chuckles) Okay. Clair, let me walk
you through the setup. Check out your new desk over here. - It's so much bigger than my old one. And there's like a neat drawer here. Gray is my favorite color. I also really love blue, and you've just tied it all together. Like holy moly! The wall. It is so cool. I now know why we had to
suffer all those saw noises. All this time, you were
cutting these boards. It's so, so cool. And of course, like with the peg wall, I've always wanted to go to Antarctica so having that in just really inspires me. - [Mike] Double press the
one button over there. - A clean
and clutter-free space has a huge impact on just how
productive someone can be. So I'm very glad that I was able to transform Clair's office
to help her focus better. And more importantly, create a space that she
can look forward to work in and enjoy life every day. - And if you're still watching right now, thank you so much for supporting my videos and watching 'til the end. Make sure you drop a water wave
emoji in the comments below to let me know that you
watch up to this point. And guys, if you like this video, remember to like, and subscribe, or even share it with a friend who you think would like this video. And that's it for now, guys. Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you in the very next one. Bye! (upbeat music) - What's that? - [Mike] Oh, I added a little
mini fridge for you. Open it. - No way! What? Yo, it's actually cold! What is this juice? That's
not my favorite drink.
