By Alyssa Cody, Volunteer and Communications Coordinator

2017 brought many changes to Keep Omaha Beautiful. It was our first full year with our new team, our updated brand, and our revised mission. We thought it was only appropriate that our office space reflect the transition of our organization. Staying true to our mission, the goal of the space revitalization was to do as much of it as possible either upcycled or with reused materials. Mission accomplished! Take a look at some of the elements of our redecorated office, and maybe find some ideas to incorporate into your own space. 

The majority of our office furniture was donated from a nearby company renovating their office. The wooden palettes on the wall were donated from a local construction business. We simply sanded them down, spray painted with a color that matched our picture frames, and mounted them on the wall. They provide a natural shelf to display some of our favorite volunteer photos. We also painted old mason jars, adorned them with a little twine, and put dried flowers inside them to add a pop of color.

We purchased this floating shelf off of Etsy, an online retailer that supports artists. A carpenter creates these shelves from reclaimed wood. It serves as the perfect home for our environmental education books. This shelf is our version of a little free library; feel free to stop by our office and pick out a book to brush up on your environmental knowledge! If you have any relevant books to donate, we would love to grow our collection. 

For the space above our printer, we found an old window at an antique store and painted directly on the glass. We love the unique platform the glass provides for the art to really stand out against the otherwise drab color of the walls. 

We wanted one of our walls to stay flexible and creative so we can change the content out as time goes. We purchased a masonite board and painted part of it with chalkboard paint and glued cork board over the rest of it. To display more photos, we simply strung up some twine and clipped photos up with mini clothespins. Take note of the little decorative owls made out of old CD's, plastic forks, and mason jar lids for the eyes!

You can't have an environmental sustainability office without plenty of plants! We used old glass jars, some colorful stones, and twine to create a home for our smaller plants.

This wall hanging was created from a small branch found outside and bits and pieces of broken jewelry tied together with twine. The calendar is a free printable calendar found online with a clipboard to keep it in place. The sunflower vase was created by wrapping a glass wine bottle in twine, with a few elements of broken jewelry for color.

Being a good steward of materials and mindful about consumption often means thinking creatively about how we can give used objects a second life. Have you come up with some of your own upcycled or reused home/office decoration? Email a photo to HelloKOB@cityofomaha.org so we can share your idea!