A Shared Office, Part 3




Curtains.
Yes, oh yes, curtains.

 


The drawers are fabulous...the white wall?
Not so much. Ditto bulletin board.

 


The paint color was custom color-matched from
the curtains. Yes, it's pea greenish.



Next project? Something to replace the tired bulletin board.



A Shared Office. Part 2

I love my new metal pegboard. It's some kind of wonderful.

Steve and I worked together like a well-oiled machine.

It took us 1 hour 7 minutes to complete ALEX.

This is just in the nature of a sneak peek. We won't be done until next weekend.

A Shared Office. Part 1



Before-ish

 When Alex left home in January to go to college, Danny felt lonesome downstairs all by himself.  I grudgingly offered him my office upstairs. I could have just taken over his room downstairs...and moved all my crap stuff, lock stock and barrel.  I just knew that I wouldn't want my computer/seminary junk stuff that far away - so I moved in with Steve (Danny and Alex had previously shared space with him).

Needless to say, the overall decor was lacking...along with adequate lighting. I could make a list of all the faults - but since there would be about fifty bajillion things on it, let's just say it was...er...less than ideal.

Now that it has new paint, new carpeting, new light fixture and new blinds, I sort of don't want to put anything back in it.  I have warned Steve that he doesn't get to bring back any crap non-essential items, such as his old college textbooks.


Practically every surface has a fresh coat of  paint,
except the top of the top shelf - after all, I can't see it.

Wall paint: Behr Premium Plus Ultra - Chai Latte
Ceiling/Shelf paint: Behr Premium Plus Ultra - Cotton Whisper
Ceiling fixture: Hampton Bay (Alabaster glass,semi-flush, nutmeg finish - from Home Depot)
Blinds: I'm too lazy to go downstairs and find the box - they were from Home Depot.
Carpet: Design Savvy - Aura  (Carpet Liquidators).

Two more things I love...

...and one thing I'm not too fond of.

1.Tia gave me this great pull-down map over a year ago.  I love it, but I  was having a tough time figuring out where to hang it. As you can see, it's pretty large.  I moved the antique secretary out of my hall earlier this week, and voila! The perfect spot opened up.

2. As Keira and Tia can attest, I am the queen of scope creep...Not content with having Steve hang my fabulous map, I decided that the area below it looked a little bare. Since Nathan and Andrew are both at home this week (Spring Break), I had some handy helpers - so I designed this sweet little shelf, bought the lumber and had the boys help (by help, I mean do) the construction. The next day I purchased some paint and today Andrew hung it for me. For anyone who's interested, the shelf unit is about 52 inches long, 23 inches tall and 4 1/2 inches deep. We added a trim board to each shelf that was taller than the shelf to act as a lip to keep the books from sliding off.

3. And now for the one thing in this picture I don't love...the lack of baseboard.  I stuck a piece underneath so as to make sure I was hanging this where I wanted it...but it's not there yet.  If you hold your finger over the part of the picture that is missing the baseboard and squint, you can just about tell how great it will all look when it's finished.

Two things I love...around my home.

I've been pretty caught up with blogging this past year and a half.  Not on this blog...on my other blog (the one I do with Keira). Sadly, this blog has been languishing on the sidelines, gasping for breath. In just over 2 weeks, Keira and I will be done with our blog project (whew!). It's been a monumental time and creativity sucker for me - but now that I'm down to three reviews, I can see some light at the end of the tunnel. Time for some artificial respiration.

I ran across a blog post here that made me pull my head up out of the sand and take a closer look at my home. Is my home as good as it can be? No. N. O.  Nope. So here's my plan. I'm going to focus on finding the things that I love about my house, and purging the stuff I don't love. As a plan it might be lacking a little, but it does have the recommendation of being free.  Heck, my visiting teacher suggested that I tote my used books down to Half-Price Books and see how much they'll give me. 

Globes.  I have somewhere in the neighborhood of two dozen.
This is my oldest - I love that it's a little slice of history.
Can you say 'Belgium Congo'?

Built-in bookcases. You can just see a corner of my
discard pile teetering on top.

I started off with some purging this morning. I went through my entire set of built-in bookcases, plus the shelves in my grandmother's secretary, plus 1/2 of one bookcase in the office.  If I had to guess, I'd say I have two or three orange boxes worth of discards. It's a start.

Thank you, Keira.

When Keira posted a picture of this month's art project, I knew I wanted it. Nay, had to have it. It was something along the lines of a moral imperative. With a husband whose business is airplanes, I knew he would love it too.

I owe many thanks to Keira for helping me in a major way. At every step I was sure I had ruined it. Sure. I. Had. Ruined. It. I might have quit if it hadn't been for her encouragement
It'll be fine, I promise, it'll be fine (repeated about a million times).

The original instructions from The Cre8tive Outlet were somewhat helpful - but I think it was even more helpful that Keira had actually made one already and I was able to profit from her mistakes. 

Eight feet of awesomeness.