Office Politics - The One Room Challenge
/Ok, there really aren't much politics involved other than I feel guilty jumping on this project when the kiddos really, really want bunk beds but I needed a catchy title :-)
So what am I talking about? My office. My sad, lonely and very cramped office. So cramped, in fact, that my couch has become my new office. So sad.
Summer before last (in 2013) I decided to tackle something that made me physically nauseous every time I walked through it - the "play area". Here are some pics from me (left) and a couple from the real estate listing showing what is on either side of the wall (right):
It was a dark dungeon that had little space you could actually use and just became a place to collect junk.
I wasn't sure what I wanted to do in the space because I needed an office but the current office set-up took up far too much space in a limited area. For years I googled, pinned and planned - trying to figure out what I wanted. I even knocked down the wall (in all fairness, this was my mom's idea and I never was 100% sure I liked it):
I continued to research rooms and came across this:
Image courtesy of zillow
I knew instantly that this is the route I wanted to go in my office. It was small but served it's purpose. I loved the floors, the doors, everything! Of course the floors were the biggest deal because we were going to have to demo out the tile on the entire lower level of the house. Sigh...
In the summer of 2013 we finally got started. We went out of town for the weekend and while we were gone, my GC removed all of the tile downstairs - all 700 square feet of it! He also framed out the new office area for me.
We opted to use french doors so the light from the windows in the back could come into the room (in retrospect, I should have done pocket french doors but oh well).
Over the next month or two I added a few things here and there - an old desk, some old Ikea Besta cabinets, pretty much a hodge podge of things I found around the house.
I painted the doors, added new knobs and that was pretty much it. A year later, I bought a desk at a consignment store that I had planned to paint. And that, my friends, is where it stayed. If I'm being perfectly honest, I was fine with it boring and barren. And then I started my import business. Because I am starting small, I am picky about what I sell and every thing is inventoried in my office. That's when the problems really started.
Full isn't it? I've got boxes from all over the place stacked to the ceilings and I can barely walk in. During production for the magazines I feel claustrophobic. But again, I've just felt too guilty to start on it. And then I stumbled across the One Room Challenge!
In a nutshell, you agree to transform one room over a six week period. Every Thursday we will link up our progress and share the joys (and sorrows) of the project. This was exactly what I needed to get started!
The plan:
After falling in love with Karisa's office at Petite Modern Life I decided to bite the bullet and do something I've wanted to do for a while - paint the walls black! Soooooooo excited
I will find a chair to recover (I'm thinking a huge wingback in a beautiful fabric)
I will (finally) paint the desk I bought a year or so ago.
I am adding a corkboard so I can pin items for work (you know, on a real, good old fashioned board).
I also want to add trim around the windows, add crown and build in the shelves. I'm so ready to get started!
Now I am off to clean everything out of the office so I can get started transforming it. Here's to nothing (wish me luck!)
