WAS THE NEWSLETTER #80

I’m Paige Wassel. WAS the Newsletter is your weekly dose of design inspiration, where we never turn on the big light.

Today is your sneak peak before the Sunday video drops, where Office Supplies is having A Moment.

We’ve been hard at work pulling it all together and I’m psyched for you guys to see the progress. We’ll be even more psyched to actually start selling some gd vintage.

LET THERE BE (ARCHITECTURAL) LIGHT

The first thing we did in the office was address the lighting because it was industrial strength not-great. Let’s be honest; overhead lighting is cruel. Fluorescents zap the life and joy out of all it touches, giving “hospital waiting room” or “stuck in line at the DMV.” We hate it. We never, ever want to have to turn on the big light. So when Louis Poulsen sent us not one but TWO of their PH Portable lamps for our table?

Excitement is an understatement.

Here’s the thing with Louis Poulsen—they simply get it, ya know? Like, every single design is that perfect mix of sculptural, but soft. And their pieces don’t scream for attention so much as sit quietly and command every eye in the room.

What we love so much is that having two of these on our big work table make us feel like we’re running an architecture firm, measuring stuff like, “Yeah, we’ll design your whole home.”

CORK WALLS, NOT CORK BOARDS

The next thing we did was to roll out a whole wall of cork. Not a dainty little square, but an entire wall. Because we’re in our Creative Genius Era and we need space for swatches, for paint chips, for any and every piece of inspo we can find.

The whole project took us a couple of hours. Is it perfectly aligned? Not entirely. Are there visible staples? Maybe a few. Does it look like we know what we’re doing? HELL, YEAH! We had to laugh when we realized that this is what a Pinterest board would look like IRL.

Eventually, our goal is to have a whole sample library, but we don’t yet have the space to display marble slabs, so give us a minute. We’ll get there.

Also, the giant toaster painting lives here now. Obvi.

TREAT YO’ SHELF

We added a couple of shelves above the cabinets to house all the WAS pillows, as we are pillow magnates now. Watch Sundays video for the full reveal. We’d love to have some better shelves custom made for the space, but this is Office Supplies V1.0. We’ve got to wait for a later iteration to bring them up to full speed.

These are a couple of plywood pieces with brackets from Amazon, simple shelves with big dreams.

WAIT, WHAT HAPPENED TO THE HUTCH?

Listen, we don’t get it right the first time, every time.

We realized the original hutch wasn’t right for the space. It was more “haunted farmhouse” and less “cool Scandinavian office that smells like a Bibliotheque candle.” Selling the hutch made way for us to bring in cabinets that felt like more of a Herman Miller-nod, as that’s the intended vibe. No regrets.

DREAM OF THE BLUE TOILET

The bathroom has really come together as we finally got the blue sink installed, joining its buddy the blue toilet. We found a fantastic square light for free on FB Marketplace and now this powder room feels like a Wes Anderson fever dream. Pound a couple of matchas before you stop by because you’ll want to see all the glorious blue for yourself. Again, tune in Sunday to see all the visuals. Had to leave a little for the tube ya know?

AND NOW, A TEASER

The last update is that we’ve been working on our branding with Toya Studio in Mexico City. What they’re bringing is bold and cool and super Paige-and-Kate-coded, so we’re excited. We’re getting custom lightbox sign for out front, as well as a lot of other fun stuff, so stay tuned!

xx,
P