OFFICE RE-DO!

I'm so excited! If you are personal friends with me on Facebook (and I know some of you are!) you probably saw where all day yesterday I was doing a major re-organize/re-decorate in my little orange chevron office.

It's about 1:30 on Tuesday morning (it's my brother's baby girl's due date... Aunt Missy is patiently- impatiently- waiting!) and I've been at it for about 15 1/2 hours... it was a major clean out in my office closet, I've been putting that off for years, and I moved a piece of furniture and am making a space for a new one, and I'm creating a full on crafting space... as well as ridding myself of the bright orange chevron. I hate the color orange. I love the fruit orange, but hate the color orange. Yuck. I have just never seen anything in orange that I really liked. Of course part of that could be the fact that I am a die-hard University of Kentucky fan. But anyway....

What does Missy do when Missy wants to redecorate but can't afford it? She pulls out the spray paint!

I've been spray painting since about 8pm... I ran out of one color around 9:30 so I had to pull out some left over regular paint that just happened to be the perfect shade for what I was doing.

I've got to go pick up my new crafting table (thanks Mama!) tomorrow and while I'm out I need to stop and pick up some contact paper to cover my table tops, all of them. I have three tops to cover: my desk, I love the desk but I'm apparently a very oily person, so I'm rubbing the finish off the top where my arms rest when I type. The table next to my desk, where I used to have my printer, which doesn't work. So I moved it and set up a bill/to file station. And then, of course, my crafting table. I want the pretty black and white floral contact paper, cause it will go with my color scheme, and it will brighten up my dark furniture. I'm also purchasing a large cork bulletin board to go over my crafting table, it will be a pretty edition to the room and my plan is to use it as my "IDEA" board, I even hand lettered a cutsey little "Idea" sign earlier in my evening. (I did go ahead and washi tape the dimensions off on my wall so that I could get the "feel" of having the board up until I can order it.)

So, does anyone have any guesses as to what my color scheme is?? It probably won't take a genius to figure it out. Aqua and Pink. Along with some black and white of course. And I'm talking, eventually, all shades of pink. It's my favorite color for me and aqua is my favorite color for decor at the present.


I got inspired on Sunday afternoon when the sight of my orange lampshades nearly made me vomit. So after about a second and a half of searching on Pinterest for ideas, I quickly, very quickly, hatched a design. I'm excited to get this project finished, entirely, and show it to you. A LOT of this project has been DIY and I'm only giving myself a $40 budget to completely redo the room, and most of that budget is going to the large cork board. The room still has to house my treadmill, so I have that to take into consideration, but I think my plan for my crafting table and desk, which I am not moving, should actually give me a lot of room to use the treadmill.

It's pretty late and I have a ton of things to get put away, the tool box, a few containers, the paint (Lord, the paint) and I'm dying of thirst and, to be honest, quite smelly. You love me for my honesty, you know you do. I'm sure my poor, poor, sweet, dear husband wishes I would shut off the music, and the lights, bathe, and get in bed. But, you all know me, I'm a clean freak, and until I can walk into this room tomorrow with my craft table in one hand and my contact paper in the other, and not have to stumble over anything (except my things for Goodwill and my things to sell online) I will not rest.

I'm a happy little lady tonight, but I'm beginning to run down, so I'd best get to hopping before I fall asleep sitting here at the desk!

I hope you all are as excited to see this super DIY office as much as I am excited to show it to you!

Home Style Evolution Series: 2nd Bedroom

NOTE: I'd like to supplement the Living Room Evolution post with this one, for now. The living room post is proving to be hard to keep from turning into a book. And the kitchen is the room that took us the longest to transform in the first place, so it will be a doozy too!

This room has always been a bit of an "anything goes" type room. It's the 2nd bedroom with no bed/Office/Craft Room/Writing Room/Workout Room/Storage Room.... etc etc.

When we first moved in it was the storage room. Our attic is inaccessible (the door is stuck shut and we don't want to risk what might be living up there to break it open!!) so we just started piling stuff up inside this room.

But after about 6 months I wanted an office, someplace where I could write, craft, blog, etc. And at the time, Aaron was studying to pass his insurance license exams and so I wanted someplace nice for him to be able to study.

This room has been a bit of everything. And a lot of that time I didn't take pictures of it, because it was a god-awful mess. 90% of the time we kept the door closed. But, I'll share what I have. This could get ugly....



Pretty sad, right?  (The table had been my Dad's desk, I love it! My mom has it now.)


This is the most miserable looking mess I've ever seen. Why is there a tupperware bowl laying in the chair??


 
 This was the day we moved the desk in. Aaron settled right in.


When I quit working a public job and started my journey as a work at home wife, I needed to make the office functional. BADLY. So I took a little time and did a little rearranging and reorganizing.


Setting the desk in the middle of the room this way was a good idea at the time, as long as I didn't put another thing, not even an extra paper clip, in this room.

 
 The one shelf for crafting supplies worked for about a minute. I didn't realize I was such a huge crafter...



 I really liked how this looked, especially with the big zebra print letters.



After a while, I realized I needed more space in the room. I needed to be able to walk in the room, for starters, I needed more crafting storage, more photography equipment storage, and I needed someplace to put the treadmill my darling bought me after years of prodding. I tried, unsuccessfully, to add a seating/reading area into this room on numerous occasions, but it never did work out. It just made the room look and feel too small and too cluttered.



I ended up swapping desks with my Mom after I started writing again. I've got three different novels in the works at the moment and spend a lot of my time in this room. The way it's set up now is certainly the most functional it's ever been. I do, desperately, need to sort through everything in the room and get rid of some things....

I love the set up of the desk. I love the art over the desk, which I made myself... I love that I finally figured out how to hook my MacBook up to my monitor and keyboard ;) My chevron lamp shades were from Dollar General as well as my orange clock and chevron pen holder (it's a tea light holder actually.) I love my little cork board with my pictures and note cards tacked on it. Alas! Woe is me... my printer doesn't work anymore :(

This shot of the room is the view when your standing in the doorway. I'll admit, it looks like jumped up mess. The black shelving unit holds all of my photography supplies - office and studio-  and a few extra baskets for organizing.  I've got a lot of stuff. And the white unit is actually 3 sets of Sterilite plastic drawers that holds all of my crafting supplies. From bottom to top: Gift Wrapping Supplies, Jewelry Making, Drawing/Art, Writing, Crocheting, Note Cards, Scrapbooking/Stickers, Office Supplies (the ones that don't fit in my desk, I'm a junkie) and finally Large Stationary. The crane looking thing on top is a craft supply organizer/light from OttLite that my cousin got me for Christmas a while ago. I LOVE IT. If you are a crafter go to WalMart and GET ONE!

Tabby has her own little nest in Mommy's office, where she can see me, otherwise she flips her tiny mind.... and that's where she's at right now, curled up in a ball asleep... with her nose in her butt. Ew. Dogs. Even so, she's still soooo cute!!!

And of course over to the side is the treadmill. :)  I've got a few movie memorabilia tins on the wall and then some of my own playbills and posters on display from my glory days in the theatre. 

 (In case your wondering, the big white thing is a Kenmore dehumidifier. We got it at Sears 5 years ago.)

As far as looks go, this room has like.... none. Aside from my attempt at art over my desk. However, from where it was before, this room is a masterpiece.

I spend so much time in this room, thanks to blogging, and my writing and crafting. It's not my dream space, by any means, but it's getting there. I've got plans to do a MAJOR clean out in the closet in this room and maybe store my black shelving unit inside there. I'm planning to buy a sewing machine and at present I have no real good place to keep it....meh. I'll keep you all updated with that!


Thanks for walking down memory lane with me one more time!