Tag: DIY

I found out some AWESOME news on Friday, which pretty much rocked my world. After almost two years of a super crazy commute schedule, I will be able to work from home two days a week.

TWO days a WEEK!

To put that into perspective, I will save 6 hours of driving each week… which totals to 13 straight days of driving a year! So yes, this is pretty life changing for me.

One problem though… our designated office is a crap-hole. The room has become a catch-all for pretty much EVERYTHING and right now contains: an old Ikea desk and desktop computer, an elliptical machine,  three bins of baby clothes that I’m trying to decide whether to sell or donate, probably a couple dozen random kids toys, empty boxes, my overflowing tool box, and so so so much more. It’s not a very pleasant place to be and I pretty much keep the door closed at all times.

I was thinking about getting rid of our old desktop computer, but my husband likes to have it there for internet searching since his tablet can be challenging sometimes. When working from my laptop at home, I typically just set it up at the kitchen table, but moving my work office to my ‘home office’ means I’ll have stuff that needs to be easily accessible.

Which brings me to this room… our guest room.

It looks kind of okay in pictures, but the bed is actually just a blow up mattress. We hardly ever have guests stay over and we intend to switch our queen mattress to the guest room when we (someday) upgrade to a king-sized bed. Until then, this room is pretty much unused except when I throw old craft stuff on my sewing table… or shove it all aside so I can actually stitch something up.

The room is great though and has some wonderful afternoon sunlight, so I decided to take it over for my brand new home office. Also, since it will be MY home office… I don’t have to worry about any stinky boys invading my space. Or moving my work paperwork around.

My first step was to clean out the sewing table area – I got rid of all the unused crafty stuff (ok, I just threw it in the old office to go through when I’m home on Christmas break…) and stored the bin of random fabrics under the table. Boom. Cleaner already.

Then, I snapped up my old desk and ripped the hutch off the top. It was pretty unnecessary and honestly just attracted crap, so I tore it off (and yes, threw it in the old office. Don’t judge me!). Next, I grabbed a can of leftover paint from our downstairs bathroom and started painting everything except the top of the desk.

I also scrounged around the house for any unused pictures and wall ornament-type stuff that wasn’t being used. I actually pulled the sun mirror, brown framed picture and white sunflower frame out of my Goodwill pile, so that worked out pretty great! I had recently picked up a couple giraffe heads from World Market, so I thought one would be a snazzy addition to my cornucopia of randomness.

I let the desk dry overnight and then put it back together and shoved it up against the wall.

I still need to add my desk file organizer once I pick it up from work, as well as few random things like my wall calendar and a pen jar… but here is what we have so far:

I reused the side-table as a printer stand and also added a dog bed for Ollie since he will probably be spending a lot of time staring at me. The only things that I purchased for the project are the floor lamp (from Target for $60) and the giraffe (from World Market for $10).

What do you think? Check out the before and after!

Have you been doing any room change projects lately? What is your favorite part of my switch up? I’m tied between the two-tone desk and the cheery yellow giraffe head!