Home Office is a Winner!

Wow! I'm so excited about how this home office project turned out ... as I sit at the desk typing this very blog post. It's just so much more functional and my style. (Plus, the wood shelves still smell like lumber and I love that!)

Here's the before picture of the traditional bookcase I just couldn't get used to (project overview here). Despite so many voices telling me to leave it, I just couldn't be satisfied with this not-my-style bookcase.

Well, two weeks and $200 later, here's the office ...

After: Much More Usable Space, Air and Style

Quick reminder of the BEFORE picture of the same wall ...
Before: Lots Chaos, Not A Lot of Usable Desk Space

WOWZA!

My goal was to liberate more of that granite desktop to be useful ... spread out papers and electronics, etc. When I work, I need SPACE! At the same time, I needed book storage, a place for the girls to plugin their school-issued laptops, and my file bin for all the papers that need to be stashed and sorted. Meanwhile, I wanted to inject some lightness to the whole room.

Here's the details for this wall:

  • I absolutely love these iron shelf brackets I found on Amazon. And spent a total of $110.85 on all 12 of them, after doing a lot of research ... there are surprisingly a lot of options out there. 
  • The wood for the shelves came from Menards (it's a midwestern big box hardware store). I got 32" x 11" boards that are 2'' thick for $6.50/each from the scrap area ($39 total). I really wanted 2'' thick board to look substantial in the brackets and luckily I found them at the exact size I needed them, so no cutting necessary. I used stain from another project to finish them.
  • I painted this room last summer in the same Polar Bear from Behr that I used all over the house. (The golden yellow just had to go.) So I finished up the bit I had left and bought another gallon for $46 to take care of the wall.  I'll want to repaint the whole room in something better.
  • I also spent $14 on a drywall patch and spackle to touch up the wall before I painted it. 
  • In total, this transformation cost $209.85

But there's more!

In the back corner by the windows, I built a shelf for all the travel books and cleaned up the sewing cabinet. I also cleared off the small table in front of the window and pulled in an upholstered chair from another room to add a soft landing place. If you remember, I wanted as many work surfaces as possible in this room, so here's another one.


Lastly, on the wall opposite the window, I set up my Mom's desk so she has a place to work when she's here. And I rehung the bulletin boards, because they're just so useful to have up and available. Photo coming. 

I'd say that was a budget well spent and I'd argue with any naysayers that this new style is way more attractive to potential buyers (not that we're selling the house anytime soon).

On to the next!



Related links:
See the start of this project! And catch up on all the Office posts

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The $80 Kitchen Pantry Update

Image
It took two days and about $80 in supplies, and now our kitchen pantry is REBORN! Here's a quick review of the project in pictures, starting with the BEFORE pictures: My main issue with the wire shelves were bottles or anything "thin" would tip over. And with my commitment to bulk, I wanted to store glass containers in here but knew they wouldn't be "safe." I foresaw broken glass at some point. Plus, it's a great space, so I knew I could add more storage space if I was strategic. Last, wire shelves are ugly. So then I demo'd the pantry and painted the walls (which was just primer) with leftover paint from the rest of the house. It's called Polar Bear. I paid an electrician to install an outlet at "counter height" in the pantry, so I could move the dumb microwave off the counter. (The electrician did a slew of other small jobs around the house, not just this outlet, including a motion-activated light in this pantry. Tres Fancy
Keep reading »

Family Calendar Improvement

Image
 Made a quick improvement at the start of the school year that I'm pretty excited about.  And yes, I'm probably the only one excited about it, but here goes ...  Here's our "command central" in our kitchen. This is a good landing spot, and a central place to all look at the family calendar ... it's that huge wipe board in the middle of the photo. All our activities are supposed to be written on here and our electronic family calendar on Google.  (Brief aside: my family is the WORST at writing their plans down in either calendar and Dave still doesn't share his events on our Google Shared Family Calendar consistently, which makes me nuts. And they all ask me "what are we doing today?" instead of looking at the calendar, usually directly behind me. But, that's another post.) I went to so much trouble putting this little area together and that huge calendar with wobbly writing was really killing the sophisticated look of that space. PLUS, we don
Keep reading »

Basement Shiplap Project

Image
The guys left me all the unused shiplap from the bathroom and I've been trying to think about where to use it. I had so many ideas but not a lot of shiplap, so I eventually settled on this corner of our basement. It's where the exercise mats and treadmill live, right behind the sofa. And also where the Marvel-themed bathroom with shiplap is located. So it made sense. It took much of a rainy Sunday to cut and nail up the new boards ...    I even had enough to do on the "backsplash" of our little kitchenette in the basement I've been slowly building out.  Next up will be to patch all the nail holes and calk around the edges for a clean look. And then the best part ... picking out paint color. Since this is a "free" project, I'm hoping I can find a color in my paint cabinet.  I'll keep you posted. 
Keep reading »