Redecorating My Husband’s Football Coach Office

When Coach-Bae asked me to decorate his new office, it was something I was happy to do. And also something I would have naturally done anyway.

I like spaces to be pretty, well organized and functional. I believe the places where we spend our time should feel good to be in, but they should also make sense for the life happening inside of them. When I first saw Eddie’s office, it was clean and had everything an office technically needed. But it didn’t feel like him yet, and it definitely didn’t feel like home.

His administration had done a great job clearing the space out and getting it ready for him. It was a nice size, long and narrow, with all the good bones of an office: an L-shaped desk, storage, refrigerator, seating and a nice, large window. There was nothing wrong with it. It was simply devoid of personality.

And I think an office, much like your home, should tell people something about you.

That felt particularly important for Eddie as a high school football coach. His office will be a place where prospective students and parents sit down to talk with him. Players will stop by. Colleagues and administrators will come in. He’ll prepare for practices and games there, have conversations with students and, knowing football, probably eat more than a few meals at his desk.

The room needed to communicate that he is approachable but knowledgeable. It needed to feel comfortable without being overly casual, and professional without feeling sterile. I wanted there to be humble hints of his accomplishments and experience without the room becoming a shrine to football.

But most importantly, I wanted it to feel like his.

Designing a Masculine Office That Still Feels Warm

Eddie was almost completely uninvolved in the design process. He tends to trust my judgment with these things. His list of requirements was wonderfully short: a blanket for naps, stationery and family photos.

Done.

My vision for his football coach office was masculine, East Coast college and heritage inspired, with dark woods and sleek black accents. I wanted some of that classic collegiate feeling without making the room feel themed.

Whenever I decorate, I try to find the balance between minimalism and warmth. I like white space. I don’t like clutter. But I also don’t want a room to feel empty.

For Eddie, that meant choosing a plaid blanket in the school colors, using black-and-white photography instead of color and making the functional pieces on his desk black so everything felt cohesive.

Then I started removing things. Because sometimes organizing a room isn’t about finding a prettier place for everything. It’s realizing everything doesn’t need to be there.

Working With What Was Already There

One of my goals was to use as much of the existing furniture as possible.

The office already had a loveseat, which I kept, along with the L-shaped desk. There were also three additional chairs. I removed two and kept the one that rolled and felt the most comfortable.

The refrigerator had been sitting on top of a small table. I moved the refrigerator and repurposed the table next to the remaining chair. Now it can hold books, extra snacks, photos or anything a visitor might need.

The office needed to serve several purposes. It’s Eddie’s workspace, but it can also become a meeting space, a place for classroom preparation and a small-group setting. Having more furniture wasn’t necessarily making it more functional. Creating some breathing room was.

I also tried to make inexpensive additions do a lot of work. The plaid blanket was an Amazon find for about $15, and choosing one in the school colors helped connect the room to the campus without filling the office with branded decor.

I added a snack organizer on top of the refrigerator for Eddie and his players and put all of the loose whiteboard supplies into magnetic organizers.

His desk got some attention too. I put his monitors on risers and added an ergonomic keyboard, mouse and mouse pad. Interestingly, the desk ended up being Eddie’s favorite part of the entire makeover. It isn’t necessarily the most decorative part, but it makes the hours he spends working there more comfortable.

That’s always the sweet spot for me: when beauty and function meet.

The Photos That Tell His Story

My favorite part of the office is the photo wall.

I’ve used Mixtiles for the past three years and love them because they’re easy to print, easy to apply and practically indestructible. I knew from the beginning that the black-and-white photos would be the focal point of Eddie’s office.

Photos can do so much heavy lifting in a room. Without anyone having to explain anything, you can walk into Eddie’s office and understand that he is a husband, a father, an experienced coach and a former player. The photos tell you where he’s been and who matters to him.

That was important because I didn’t want his accomplishments displayed in a way that felt overly formal or self-important. I wanted the room to quietly communicate his experience. And the photos accomplished that.

Making His Office Feel Like Home

We paid for the office makeover ourselves, and there wasn’t really a formal budget. Under different circumstances, that probably wouldn’t have been particularly notable. But I’ve recently transitioned to being a stay-at-home mom while building my own business, so spending money decorating an office was a little bit of a stretch.

Still, this particular office meant something to me.

Eddie has worked at schools where, despite all of the work and contribution he gives, he’s gotten a corner of an office or no office at all. He has so often had to work on the fly from his phone, a borrowed laptop or an iPad.

So for him to finally have a space that is his own, where he can do all of the meaningful work he does, I wanted it to represent that.

And this isn’t just another job for him. The school he’s working at now is, in a lot of ways, his dream school. It has so much of what he has been looking for in a job, and he hopes to be there for years. He hopes to make it home.

There is something about settling into an office that signals that.

I once had an office at a job where I knew I was only staying for a moment, and I never decorated it. My boss would come by and joke that she knew I wasn’t staying because I had never settled into my office. She wasn’t wrong.

There is something symbolic about unpacking your things, hanging your pictures and making room for yourself. It says, I’m here. I wanted Eddie’s office to say that.

Creating Spaces Is One of the Ways I Love People

Making things beautiful and functional is just part of my personality, but I also think it’s one of the ways I show love and care for people.

I want the beautiful people in my life who are going through beautiful experiences to get to do so in beautiful ways. But I also want the people I love to be equipped to do the things they’ve set out to do.

Work is where we spend so much of our time. If you’re fortunate enough to have some control over your workspace, I think it should feel comfortable. It should have what you need. And, ideally, it should remind you of who you are outside of whatever happens at your desk.

When Eddie first saw the finished office, he was in the middle of working. He gave it a quick look around, told me I’d done a great job and went right back to whatever he was doing. Very Eddie!

But as the day went on, people started coming into the office. Then came the texts. And the calls. And the FaceTimes. He told me how wonderful it was, thanked me over and over, told me he knew I would do a perfect job and kept reporting back that people loved sitting in there.

That may have been the best compliment, because that’s exactly what I wanted the room to do.

Designing Something Different

This project was fun for me creatively too.

I’m usually designing spaces for myself or Ava, so I naturally get to lean more feminine. Designing a masculine office stretched my visual eye in a different direction. I got to play with dark woods, black accents, plaid, collegiate influences and a much more restrained palette while still figuring out how to make the space feel warm.

Projects like this continue to affirm something I’ve been learning about myself as I move further into entrepreneurship and creative work: I have an eye for creating things.

Whether it’s a brand, a room, an event or something else entirely, I enjoy looking at what already exists, figuring out what isn’t quite working and making it feel more intentional.

And decorating for Eddie is particularly easy because Eddie is easy. Every time I plan an event or take on a project involving him, I’m reminded of just how amenable he is. He doesn’t have a long list of things that are off-limits or huge non-negotiables. He’s easygoing and easy to please. Somehow, that makes doing something special for him feel even more deserved.

When I look at his finished office now, I think it says exactly what I hoped it would.

Professional. Well thought out. Experienced. Approachable. And loved.

Maybe that’s ultimately what decorating a workspace is about. It isn’t filling an office with things or making it look like a Pinterest board. It’s creating a space that supports the work being done there while telling a little bit of the story of the person doing it.

For Eddie, this office marks the beginning of a new football season, a new school and, hopefully, a place where he’ll have the opportunity to settle in and build something for years to come…And now, at least, he has somewhere comfortable to take his naps.