Well, I guess its time to start one of these pages up.
The primary reason that Marty and I moved into a two bedroom apartment was so that we could have an office where I could do work. And let me tell you, its been an incredibly valuable asset. But the problem is that its, well, a bit cramped. Quite often (multiple times daily) I have to squeeze through the four inches left between Marty’s chair and the futon in order to get to my desk, and heaven help me if I want to move around at my desk. Here is a beautiful picture of the desk directly in front of the door:
Can you see the door on the left-hand side of the picture? Yeah, me neither.
So, to ameliorate the situation, we’ve come up with a plan that will have several phases:
Phase 1 – Out with the old
We’ve already sold the giant desk that was block our access to the sliding door, and we’re trying to sell Marty’s desk as well. We might end up just giving that away, which actually wouldn’t be a huge loss since his dad got it for free to begin with. Also, we’re probably giving the futon to our friends Jenny and Bryan after Marty’s parents have had their stay on it. Yes, we’ll be down guest sleeping quarters, but there are still couches in the family room, and they’re pretty big. And who knows, we might even invest in an air mattress!
Phase 2 – In with the new
Since at this point in the plan we’ll be down to a filing cabinet, two mismatched bookcases, and two office chairs, we’re going to have to do some pretty serious furniture introductions. Enter the design pallette!
Black from the iron, green from outside the window, beige from canvas (and the walls), and tan from the wood. Beautiful, non?
Yes, its a little detailed, but it never hurt anybody to have a good solid plan. First, Marty is going to build two desks in a workbench style out of pine, sort of like this one. Those desks gave me the idea that we could do the room a little bit rustic-y. Nothing like Mohican, mind you, but we could easily put a little Colorado flavor into our office. Second, we’ll bring in the wrought iron bookshelf from the bedroom into the office. Then we’ll have to deal with the mismatched bookshelves. We can either sand them down and restain them to be similar to the pine desks, or paint them, or just get rid of them and build some new pine ones. We’ll see how our budget is at that point.
Here’s the floor plan of how it will look when all the furniture is back in:
Desks and filing cabinets to the rights, bookshelvevs to the left
Phase 3 – The final countdown
This is probably going to be the most fun, and most drawn out part of the process. All of those cute accessories you see in the palette? They’ll have to come from somewhere. But they’ll be worth it.
2 is a wastebasket, and while its not crucial to the design, its definitely a HUGE step up from the white plastic bin we have going on right now.
4 is the sweetest set of green office organizational components, which will be incredibly useful because we won’t have any drawers in our new office (which actually will mean that we’ll have one less drawer than we had before).
5 is the perfect storage bin for my rustic-y theme – its made of canvas and has a suede rim around the top edge. Cute, classy, fits perfectly with the rustic-y theme, and could fit into other themes as well down the road.
6 actually comes in a set of 2, one for Marty and one for me. These would be particularly fantastic because I’m always sorting through mountains of paper, and Marty’s desk has been known to disappear for extended periods of time. I also love that they’re wall-mounted, because the office is a room where wall space is in far greater supply than floor or shelf/desk space.
7 is something I’d be very surprised if we bought, but it does crack me up. Nothing says Colorado like antlers on your light fixture! Actually, though, the light fixture in there is really bad, which is why I brought in numbers 8 and 9.
These lamps are some serious multi-taskers. They’ll go on the desks to provide task lighting without shining directly in my eyes or becoming so hot that I’m afraid things will catch on fire (both things that our current one lamp in there already does). Also, their natural colored shades will bring in the color from the curtains (that already exist) and the storage boxes. And their iron bases will look nice with the wrought iron bookcase that will be moved into that room as well as the black metal filing cabinet that has to stay in there.
10 is one of my favorite things, but I have to wait and see the room before buying it because I’m not 100% sure where to put a floor vase. But I would love to have something in there that would be there just for a little bit of luxury. Plus, we could just fill it with branches throughout the changing seasons, so it would be a great way to bring the outside in!
I’ve got a couple more little crafts and ideas up my sleeve still, but you’ll have to wait to see them!
Wish us luck, we buy the wood for the desks tomorrow!
For now, we’ll leave you with these beautiful pictures of how the office looks right now. Sad, I know.
Marty's desk (still intact) and my "desk area" (don't worry, I don't work there unless I'm printing something)
On the plus side, its already better because we can get out the door!
Office Rumblings
Well, I guess its time to start one of these pages up.
The primary reason that Marty and I moved into a two bedroom apartment was so that we could have an office where I could do work. And let me tell you, its been an incredibly valuable asset. But the problem is that its, well, a bit cramped. Quite often (multiple times daily) I have to squeeze through the four inches left between Marty’s chair and the futon in order to get to my desk, and heaven help me if I want to move around at my desk. Here is a beautiful picture of the desk directly in front of the door:
Can you see the door on the left-hand side of the picture? Yeah, me neither.
So, to ameliorate the situation, we’ve come up with a plan that will have several phases:
Phase 1 – Out with the old
We’ve already sold the giant desk that was block our access to the sliding door, and we’re trying to sell Marty’s desk as well. We might end up just giving that away, which actually wouldn’t be a huge loss since his dad got it for free to begin with. Also, we’re probably giving the futon to our friends Jenny and Bryan after Marty’s parents have had their stay on it. Yes, we’ll be down guest sleeping quarters, but there are still couches in the family room, and they’re pretty big. And who knows, we might even invest in an air mattress!
Phase 2 – In with the new
Since at this point in the plan we’ll be down to a filing cabinet, two mismatched bookcases, and two office chairs, we’re going to have to do some pretty serious furniture introductions. Enter the design pallette!
Black from the iron, green from outside the window, beige from canvas (and the walls), and tan from the wood. Beautiful, non?
Yes, its a little detailed, but it never hurt anybody to have a good solid plan. First, Marty is going to build two desks in a workbench style out of pine, sort of like this one. Those desks gave me the idea that we could do the room a little bit rustic-y. Nothing like Mohican, mind you, but we could easily put a little Colorado flavor into our office. Second, we’ll bring in the wrought iron bookshelf from the bedroom into the office. Then we’ll have to deal with the mismatched bookshelves. We can either sand them down and restain them to be similar to the pine desks, or paint them, or just get rid of them and build some new pine ones. We’ll see how our budget is at that point.
Here’s the floor plan of how it will look when all the furniture is back in:
Desks and filing cabinets to the rights, bookshelvevs to the left
Phase 3 – The final countdown
This is probably going to be the most fun, and most drawn out part of the process. All of those cute accessories you see in the palette? They’ll have to come from somewhere. But they’ll be worth it.
2 is a wastebasket, and while its not crucial to the design, its definitely a HUGE step up from the white plastic bin we have going on right now.
4 is the sweetest set of green office organizational components, which will be incredibly useful because we won’t have any drawers in our new office (which actually will mean that we’ll have one less drawer than we had before).
5 is the perfect storage bin for my rustic-y theme – its made of canvas and has a suede rim around the top edge. Cute, classy, fits perfectly with the rustic-y theme, and could fit into other themes as well down the road.
6 actually comes in a set of 2, one for Marty and one for me. These would be particularly fantastic because I’m always sorting through mountains of paper, and Marty’s desk has been known to disappear for extended periods of time. I also love that they’re wall-mounted, because the office is a room where wall space is in far greater supply than floor or shelf/desk space.
7 is something I’d be very surprised if we bought, but it does crack me up. Nothing says Colorado like antlers on your light fixture! Actually, though, the light fixture in there is really bad, which is why I brought in numbers 8 and 9.
These lamps are some serious multi-taskers. They’ll go on the desks to provide task lighting without shining directly in my eyes or becoming so hot that I’m afraid things will catch on fire (both things that our current one lamp in there already does). Also, their natural colored shades will bring in the color from the curtains (that already exist) and the storage boxes. And their iron bases will look nice with the wrought iron bookcase that will be moved into that room as well as the black metal filing cabinet that has to stay in there.
10 is one of my favorite things, but I have to wait and see the room before buying it because I’m not 100% sure where to put a floor vase. But I would love to have something in there that would be there just for a little bit of luxury. Plus, we could just fill it with branches throughout the changing seasons, so it would be a great way to bring the outside in!
I’ve got a couple more little crafts and ideas up my sleeve still, but you’ll have to wait to see them!
Wish us luck, we buy the wood for the desks tomorrow!
For now, we’ll leave you with these beautiful pictures of how the office looks right now. Sad, I know.
Marty's desk (still intact) and my "desk area" (don't worry, I don't work there unless I'm printing something)
On the plus side, its already better because we can get out the door!