Women's home office ideas on a budget

Organize and decorate a work-from-home office to make it more feminine, homely and interesting with our women's home office ideas on a budget.

Today, I'm sharing some budget-friendly women's home office ideas together with some ideas for how to spruce up a home office on a budget.

When you spend a lot of time in your office as I do, the space needs to be inviting enough to keep you motivated so that you can't wait to get in there in the mornings.

These days, with so many of us working from home full time and usually in small spaces or in the living room at that, it's no wonder that we get a little fed up with our surroundings from time to time.

If you're looking to make your small home office more homely, inviting, cosy and organized, my quick and easy feminine home office ideas will be right up your alley!

TIP: Although these women's home office ideas relate to my decorating style, you can easily apply my information and tips to your office design. The aim is to create a more cosy and feminine office in your own style.

Find the shopping links at the end of this post.

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Table of contents

Working with what you have

Do you remember, when I made an L-shaped corner desk for the tiny landing at the top of the stairs?

I desperately needed a place to set up a feminine looking office space but there was no room for one. That's when I decided to get creative with the tiny landing at the top of the stairs. I worked hard to create a modern feminine office space in a tiny room that wasn't even a room. That was a quick and easy home office makeover and I still love it to bits!

Just to remind you, this is how my tiny office space started out.

A 'before' photo of a small office with a tiny wooden table and bare walls. — Bare walls, no decor, and a tiny desk - how not to decorate your office.

Totally uninspiring, I know and totally in need of a feminine touch!

Would you want to spend hours working in this little room? Me neither! It was way beyond time to bring out all of the women's home office ideas I had gathered and to put them into action!

To see how I transformed this tiny landing into the functional work-from-home office you see in the photo below, see my tiny office makeover post.

Oak corner desk in a small office at the top of the stairs

Office spruce up

This winter, I decided it was time to spruce up my tiny workspace. I wanted to give it a quick and easy farmhouse office makeover. I mean, it's the start of a brand new year, after all. Starting afresh, getting organized and sprucing up rooms is a given anyway, isn't it? What better way to start the year than with an office makeover to keep you motivated?

Styling for the seasons

Now, as you probably know, I'm not averse to changing things up a bit with my home décor. I don't usually go overboard but I do like to style for the seasons. If you've seen any of my home tours you'll know what I mean.

One of my favourite women's home office ideas to spruce up a home office is to use seasonal decorating.

Adding some seasonal colours and introducing textures to your office will go a long way to creating a cosy and inviting atmosphere.

As you can see from the small office decorating ideas in this post, beautiful home office decor doesn't need to cost a fortune.

A whole view of a women's home office tucked in to a small nook at the bottom of a set of stairs. Shows a DIY l-shaped corner desk, a comfortable desk chair, round jute office rugs and a comfy pillow on the stairs. — Warm up a white office with warm wood tones and cosy textures.

Gather inspiration

There are loads of gorgeous home office ideas out there. In the pursuit of creating the home office of your dreams, it's easy to 'fall down a rabbit hole'. When this happens, you can get decision paralysis and end up doing nothing at all. You can gather a good deal of information before you even start a project. Pinterest and Instagram are great resources for gathering ideas.

Take a look at my office Pinterest board, it's chock full of women's home office ideas.

Create a mood board

I have a great resource that will help you with some of the more important considerations. If you want to make the best choices during the planning process, read all about making mood boards here.

Making a mood board will help with the decision making for the entire room. Here are the sort of questions you should be asking yourself before you start a project:

Do you need a new desk and if so should it be a white desk or a wooden desk?
Do you have a dedicated office space?
Will you need to fit your office desk into your existing living space?
Is there scope to carve out a corner for your office in another room like the dining room or living room?
Perhaps you can create a closet office or as it's called these days, a cloffice!
Are you more into modern spaces or is rustic more your style?

TIP: The best part about making a mood board is that it doesn't need to take up much time. It can, however, help prevent you from making bad choices and therefore, save you a lot of money.

The best home office ideas for you, are those that make your room feel comfortable whilst still remaining functional.

How can I make my home office cosy?

The first question I asked myself at the start of my farmhouse office makeover was "how can I make my office space more warm and cosy?"

The walls in my tiny north-facing office underneath the eves are all white. The room has a large overhead window flooding the room with lots of natural light but without the sun, it can look quite cold.

For this rustic farmhouse office makeover, I knew I needed to add some warmer tones and more texture.

Here are some of my favourite home office ideas, for bringing warmth and texture to one of the smallest spaces in the house.

How to bring warmth into a white room

Increase the wood tones

The easiest way to bring warmth to a white room is to add some wood tones.

You might already know that I am currently converting a former bedroom in our home into a multi-purpose room for crafting, photography and to use as an office. In that room was an Ikea office storage unit identical to the one I've been using in my tiny landing office. The only difference was the colour of the doors namely, wood instead of white.

To bring more warmth and texture into the tiny office, I decided to swap the office storage units around. There was an immediate shift in the atmosphere in the office when I did this. The wood-toned doors of the cabinet made the room feel much cosier.

Portrait view of a women's home office showing a large computer chair covered with furs and a large fur style pillow. — Easily disguise an ugly desk chair with furs and pillows

The top of the office storage unit has been decorated with seasonal elements like large pine cones, a large rustic twig wreath and a wood textured vase filled with natural dried grasses.

You can see that most of this décor comes from nature and costs nothing at all!

TIP: When starting a room makeover, shopping your house is a great place to start!

Take a walk around your house and look at what you already have. Does that piece of furniture need to be where it is or could it be more useful as part of your new design? If Yes, you've just saved a load of money that can be spent on other elements of your design.

DIY open shelving

Another great way to bring warmth into a white room is by installing some wooden shelves. The shelves in this tiny office were installed during the original office makeover. You can see how we installed the shelves here.

Shelf storage: To bring even more warmth and texture to the office shelves, I added a rustic wicker storage basket similar to the ones you can see in my summer home tour, underneath my upcycled coffee table. You can also see the original Rivera Maison style coffee table makeover here.

Styling shelves: Shelves are also great for styling and for adding a feminine touch to your office space. Sprinkle some picture frames, flower vases or your favourite décor items in between the storage containers and files. If you need some inspiration, I have a great post on styling shelves here.

Women's home office ideas for shelf storage. Includes, a white storage box, baskets, file folders and DIY organiser's made from tin cans. — Give your office a cosy vibe with warm wood tones and baskets.

DIY office storage ideas

To add functionality to the rustic wooden shelves, I added some storage boxes and DIY storage containers made from upcycled tins.

TIP: Last week, I wrote a separate post about all of the desk organization ideas and DIYs in this farmhouse office makeover. Pop on over to read that if you need some creative ideas for office or craft room storage.

Whitewashed wood Computer desk

The L-shaped corner desk is fitted, there's no changing it and I love it as it is anyway! The surface of the wooden computer desk is whitewashed. You can see how I whitewashed the desk in my DIY tiny office post or take a look at my post 'How to whitewash wood' for more details on how to do that.

How to decorate your desk at home

Apart from the obvious, laptop, PC, headphones and chargers, there are certain accessories we all need to have on our desks at home.

Items like the ones listed below all need a home too:

Pens
Pencils
Rulers
Sticky notes
Paper clips
Organisers etc.

Why not save some cents and make your organizers serve double duty by making them a part of your feminine style desk decoration? Here are some ideas to get you started:

Clear glass jars filled with Washi tapes or sticky notes
Small baskets
Wooden trays
Pretty stencilled paper bags
Rustic wood organisers and boxes
Vintage tins

TIP: If you're looking for sustainable desk accessories, you might like the post I wrote on how to make your office more sustainable.

How to make your office more feminine

Colour palette

Women's home office ideas for decorating a small workspace. Includes a large cork pinboard, inspirational framed photos with a winter theme and rustic wood desk accessories and pen holders. — Add a pinboard to your office space and decorate it with fairy lights.

Modern farmhouse style usually includes the colours black and white somewhere. With that in mind, I decided to use some black and white paint to spruce up a mini chest to complement the modern farmhouse office style I was going for.

If you'd like to see how I used a star quilt block design to transform this little chest, you can read all the details in my Ikea Moppe makeover post.

Corner view of an l-shaped desk in a women's home office. The corner is filled with an Ikea Moppe mini storage chest and metal candle holders. — Pinboards are not just for schedules. Inspiring postcards, favourite birthday cards or memorabilia can be added too.

Office wall decoration

Wall paint: Painting the walls is a quick and easy update for your home office design to make it look more feminine. Take some time to plan out your colour scheme before you start. Do you prefer feminine pastel colours or are bright colours more your thing? If your aim is to just add a pop of colour, you can achieve that by adding desk accessories in your favourite shade.

Accent wall: If you're not sure about painting the whole office, you could use paint to create just one accent wall. If your working desk is in the dining room, consider painting a small section of the wall around your home office space in a bright colour block design.

Wallpaper: Instead of painting your office walls, you could try adding removable wallpaper. There are some great options for peel and stick wallpaper these days that are also renter-friendly!

Gallery walls: Not every home office will have space for a gallery wall. I managed to create a small gallery wall behind the office door.

Although I love including inspiring photography in my interior designs, I also love swapping them out with the seasons. This means that I choose affordable posters which can be switched about regularly, to decorate my rooms.

Women's home office ideas for decoration. Includes a round wood-look vase filled with dried gasses and an interesting gallery wall with inspirational prints and framed posters.. — Add a feminine touch to your office with a vase of fresh flowers or dried grasses.

Posters: If there is no space for a gallery wall, you could display some posters in picture frames on your desk as I've done in my office.

TIP: Here are some posts that will help you spruce up your walls:

How to create a gallery wall
Making pressed flower prints
Where to buy affordable botanical wall art

Furniture

Comfortable chair

It goes without saying that a comfortable chair should be high on your list of priorities when thinking about office furniture. The last thing you need is backache and bad posture from sitting in a cheap chair all day.

The thing is, good, affordable, chairs are not always the most feminine looking. My office chair definitely looks as if it's been designed for a man but whether at home or at work, it's just the most comfortable office chair I've ever had.

To get around the boring design, I've covered my office chair with cosy furs and pillows! Now, when I'm working in my office on a cold day, I feel like my chair is wrapping its arms around me and giving me a big warm hug!

TIP: It's better to disguise a good comfortable chair than suffer backache from sitting in a cute, pink, cheap, desk chair 'designed for women'!

Textiles

Adding some cosy office textiles is another way of creating warmth and texture in a room. Apart from the tips with the cosy furs and pillows mentioned above, make sure that you have something warm and soft underfoot.

Some people prefer to place plastic mats directly underneath their office chairs to stop the wheels from scratching hardwood surfaces or getting stuck on the carpet. If this is you, you can still add a cosy rug underneath your desk to keep your feet warm and snug.

Rugs

There are carpets and rugs out there for even the smallest rooms. As you can see I have two small round jute rugs in my office. Jute rugs are practical and hard-wearing making them a great option for a small feminine home office.

Furs are another great option for underneath the office desk, they fit into any small space and will keep your feet feeling toasty.

Creating soft ambient lighting

Soft ambient lighting plays a large role in any feminine office design. I hardly ever use the harsh overhead lighting in my office, preferring instead to rely on various light sources to create a soft glow.

Here's how I create ambient lighting in my tiny office.

Desk lamp: A task lamp is a perfect solution for creating ambient lighting in an office. These lamps come in many different shapes and forms and light up your whole workspace.

Close-up of a feminine desk setup including framed photos and DIY desk accessories. — Desk lamps are important. Here a modern desk lamp from Ikea illuminates the working space.

Candles

Rustic metal candle holder: I love the rustic lantern which is sitting on top of the Ikea mini chest, it holds a large church style soy candle and looks absolutely beautiful when I burn it on late winter afternoons.

Candle votives: I also love burning homemade scented soy candles in my office. If you'd like to know how to make these non-toxic votive candles yourself, you can find a candle making tutorial here.

Candle décor: Below, a simple glass globe candle holder has been filled with fake snow and a pine cone for a winter touch.

A tealight nestled in white sand in a clear glass candle holder in a women's home office. — Adding natural elements creates texture and interest in a small home office.

String lights

There is always something magical looking about string lights in a room. I have these pretty lights strung across the back of my desk and I can't help but feel cosy when I have them twinkling in the background.

Conclusion

As you can see from all of these women's home office ideas, creating a more feminine, beautiful room to work in doesn't need to cost the earth. With a little creativity and thinking outside the box, anything is possible.

I hope you enjoyed my office decor ideas for women on a budget. Maybe there are some tips here, that you can utilize in your own home office.

Favourite office essentials for her

Here are some of our favourite work-from-home essentials that you can buy from around the web.

A note about the products listed: If you order a product from one of my partners via links on this page, I receive a small percentage. I only recommend products that I have already used myself or have selected with care. You pay the same price whether you use my affiliate link or not. Please read my full disclosure here.

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These posts are good too!

Small, work from home office with an L-shaped corner desk. — How to build a corner desk

Tin cans upcyled with a paper and twine sash to use as creative desk organizers. — 11 Creative desk organization ideas & DIYs

A person using a marker pen to transfer a pattern onto the front of an Ikea Moppe storage chest. — Ikea Moppe hack

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