The New Office

Our house was built in 1992, so old, fixer upper it is not. However, when we moved in it needed a lot of love. It still does. At this point we have finished the basement (and refinshed the parts they started doing but then trashed), done the outside landscaping in the front and the back, added our gardens and fruit bushes/trees, redone the first floor bathroom, and had the upstairs hallway and bedrooms painted. The next project up was our sort of spare bedroom upstairs.

I say sort of spare because our 4th bedroom upstairs is odd. It is small and shaped weird and has a door both from the hallway and from our bedroom to enter it. Great nursery space but we don't need that. Not a fabulous bedroom for guests (plus we have a huge guest bedroom with a bathroom in the basement now). So we decided to make the space a home office. For the past two years I have been working a bit from home, about 3.5 hours a week each week plus additional times for interviews after the kids go to bed and around teaching or appointments at other times. Our hope is that Bryan can work from home a little more now that his work has settled down a bit. We wanted a comfortable space to do that which wouldn't be the kitchen table or a couch in the living room. Plus we wanted a space where the kids could work on homework and projects as they get older but that we can monitor. So this weird, spare bedroom was perfect.

Pre-renovation the room had worn out carpets that could hardly be vacuumed, off-white walls, 3 over-stuffed, non-matching bookshelves, and lots of junk. We cleaned out most of the junk, reorganized the closest full of craft supplies, wrapping supplies, and batteries. We painted the walls a bright teal. And we paid a cabinet guy to make us custom desks/bookshelves that are almost build-ins but not quite. We wanted them to be removable if we really do make the move to Florida someday and someone else wants to make the space in to a nursery or something else. And finally (or actually before the desk and shelves) had new flooring put down. Local friends, we absolutely love Dan Gray from fine floors on Frederick if you need a guy for floors! He also did our basement carpet and is lovely.

So here is our space. We are still outfitting it with office supplies. Bryan got a computer/monitor to mirror his work space set up, we also got a new wireless printer, and two awesome desk chairs. We still need some nice blinds and a new ceiling fan (and this one can replace Kellen's that has only two blades on it!) but we are almost there and it is perfect. We will try to post another picture after it is totally ready! So glad we decided to do this project.

Someday we will get to the first floor projects. And the master bath. Kitchen, we are coming for you! Well probably after a new roof first, but in the next 2-3 years, you are ours!

Before. Yes, we have lived here 5 years...

 

And After. Medals on display!

My desk.

And B's area.