Home Office Makeover

My Hubby started working from home back in February of 2016.  Back then we still lived in Utah and his office was squeezed into our guest room so we bought a smaller table/desk and just made it work until we moved that summer.  

Fast forward to now, we've been living in Georgia for nearly a year, he is still working from home, but he now has an entire room on our main floor for his office.  

Sadly, up until this week it's looked like this:

Random stuff and all of our important files sat in this corner pretty much since we moved in.

So this closet was actually full of boxes and all of our board games! I didn't think to take the before pictures until after I'd already hauled out all of the games and started unpacking the boxes (which were mostly all books).

Not very inviting.  

I can't believe we've let it look like this for so long!

He went out of town for 3 days this past week and I decided to give it a complete overhaul to surprise him for Father's Day!

 So I worked really hard to unpack boxes, move out excess stuff that shouldn't have been in there and then I got to work pulling the room together!

I did all of this and I could have easily stopped here:

Curtains, new shelves to display things and a new (to him) desk.  He would have still been super happy and surprised with this much done!

The desk was brought up from the basement. I was using it for my craft desk but we are going to do a much bigger one so this one was free for the using! It was so much nicer and hid all of the ugly computer cords so well.  Plus--more storage!  I hung curtains to make the room feel cozy and go these shelves from Target and put them together after the kids went to bed.  (Only took 4 episodes of Friends doing it on my own...)

But why stop there?? 

Ta-Da!!

 

I bought a real plant for the top of the shelves and then got new updated pictures for these frames that we used to have hanging in our old house.  I created a gallery of family photos for him to look at every day!  Very "Father's Day" appropriate, too :)

(The cats really liked Scott's new office... )

On the other side of the office I got another plant (which we have to shew the cats away from!) and pulled up this black chair from the basement.  The chair isn't super nice, but it was left behind from the previous homeowners and it actually works really great in the space! Plus now I have a cozy chair to sit in when I bug hubby at "work" :)

The closet is holding a bunch of our books (until we figure out where to put real bookshelves) and the file boxes are organized and look much nicer in the close than in a heaping mess in the corner of the floor.  Plus, the doors can stay closed and the mess will be hidden.

Bonus points:  I filled Scott's desk drawers with organizers and office supplies from the dollar store.  

His trashcan is hidden nicely in this lower cupboard part of the desk

I'm really happy that I found a great way to display his Garfield comic book collection that he had from childhood.  So much better here than stuck in a box!

 

Hubby came home late on Wednesday night, so I had to stay quiet all night and all morning he was really taking his time "getting to work" so I was patiently waiting for him to walk in and get the surprise of his life ;)  It was so much fun to watch!  I totally wish I got it on video, but he was just a little too quick for me to grab the camera. Totally worth all the hard work and late nights. 

 What do you think?

 

Playroom Loft Update

This is what our playroom area looked like for the majority of the last few years:

Ok well, actually it looked more like this…

Yeah.

Anyway…

Not a whole lot on the walls, and not that much storage for toys which always seem to be multiplying. 

The couch belonged to my sister, and she took it to her new house (she didn’t have room for it before in their old house).  It is a family heirloom, so the longer in my house it stayed the more worried I got about Sam destroying it.  I already had to scrub pen mark artwork off the back once.)  Once it was gone, it left a lot of raw space to work with, so I decided to redo the entire space!

So now it looks like this:

We moved the toy bin unit to Luke’s room to hold his dinosaurs and a few other toys that were just his.  I got rid of the other two tables and then bought two 2x4 Expedit units from IKEA.  We added legs to the bottom of each of the shelves to add some height and character to the shelves. 

Then the hard part…finding bins for the toys.  You would think that with the popularity of these shelves and people’s ever-growing need for storage and organization there would be tons of options.  Not so.  I didn’t like any of the IKEA options except for the basket-type, but they were kind of pricey at $14.99 each.  That was basically my probably through-out the whole search.  The baskets I liked that were the right size, were either not the right color, or too expensive.  Other baskets that were good prices were usually too small.  I eventually found these bins at WalMart.com, but I really wanted red ones.  After thinking about the design of the room some more I decided to pull in more black, so I went with the black bins.  Turned out to work really well in the space!  I did bite the bullet and spend more than I wanted at 12.97 each, but in the end the bins are huge and hold a ton of toys.  I think they will hold up to the kids wear and tear, too. 

I had Scott install the curtain rod, and I used these curtains that used to hang in my kitchen once upon a time.

Nothing fancy, but the colors worked well in the space and it blocks out light when I want it darker up there. 

Then I made custom 20x30 posters to fit IKEA frames.  

These by themselves were quite the project.  I made them all myself in Photoshop, but getting them to fit in those weirdly sized Ikea Frames from prints that weren’t the same dimensions was a bit more math and measuring than I care to do.  They turned out great, though and I love them! 

Now I just have to refinish or paint the little kids table and find some chairs that I like to go with it.  I think Sam will love having a little table to sit at and color and play.  I also need labels on the bins so that Luke has an easier time putting toys away on his own. 

So what do you think of my new space? 

Craft Closet Organization with Pull Out Fabric Shelf

This past week {or two} I’ve been cleaning out and organizing my craft closet.  I don’t have a craft room, just an extension of our computer desk, so most of my supplies live in their own closet in the hallway nearby. 

My craft closet used to look like this:

Now it looks like this: 
All in all, it wasn’t too bad for a while.  It stayed organized this way for about a year.  But after hoarding more supplies and fabric and shoving more unfinished projects and mess into this closet, it started looking really really bad! Here’s just a glimpse of what’d it become…I don’t dare show the rest!

With some work, I conquered the fabric and scraps and now have a better system for it.  After that I needed to work on the rest of the closet and make it more functional, too. 
One more time, here is the new pull-out fabric shelf.  (Click here to see how I built it).  It fits perfectly in the odd little nook that is in this closet. 

Starting from the bottom of the closet to the top, we first have the rest of the fabric.  Large yardage, denim, sweater material fits into the large bin, and all the scraps are sorted by color into ziplock bags in the smaller bin.  If the scraps or other fabric starts overflowing again, it’s time to purge! 

Next shelf up is ribbon and yarn.  I decided that ribbon is one of the hardest things on the planet to organize and no one has yet come up with an absolute perfect system.  I hated nearly all the things I found online, so I ended up using these two bins for ribbon.  Luckily it all fit!  I did have to purge some ribbon that I decided I could part with to make them fit, but compared to how I stored my ribbon before this is a better solution.

I spent 2 1/2 hours on Saturday organizing just my scrapbook paper!  I first went through the entire 50lb stack and removed all the paper I didn’t love any more.  I ended up clearing out a third of the entire stack! Then I organized all the papers into color family and then re-stacked it to put back in the closet. I could have put it all into separate 12x12 bins for easier access, but I like it this way because it takes up less space. I can usually find what I want without too much hassle. 

Next to the paper I have all the envelopes, and next to that I have two more bins. These supplies used to be in just one basket, but it was hard to find things and got messy fast. Now they are organized into stamps and the other is punches & Cricut supplies {extra blades, a few cartridges}.
Here’s the Punches & Stamps bins:

Fun!  Just looking at all those stamps in one place makes me want to start making something!!
Next shelf up is Kid’s Craft and a few miscellaneous things on the side.  The basket on the right has all kinds of things—pipe cleaners, googly eyes, foam stickers, fuzzy poms, and more.  The one on the left has markers, colored pencils, fabric markers and things like that. 

Lastly, the top of the closet stores all the smaller storage tubs with all the other various supplies!

There are three bins marked “Craft” and that’s pretty vague, but for me that just means it’s a random mix of supplies that don’t really need their own bin. Here’s what’s inside:

And that’s it!  I’m so glad I decided to tear it all out and organize each shelf and bin.  It’s so much easier to think and create when there’s not a cluttered mess everywhere!
BEFORE:
AFTER:


I’m proud to say that I didn’t buy a single tub or basket to organize this closet! I was able to use what I had around the house and not spend a dime! Thy only money spent was on the fabric shelf for the wheels and the handles.  I already had the primer and paint. The three smaller red tubs used to be on Sam’s changing table shelves, but we got him a dresser so they made their new home here!  Love it when that happens!

I’ve been working on the craft desk itself, but there’s still more work to be done, so here’s a sneak peak of what I’m working on for Easter until I’m ready to show that off. Can you guess what it is?

Conquering the Fabric Pile

I’m not sure what came over me, but last week and I randomly just emptied out ALL of my fabric, and all of my scrap stashes onto my guest bed.

Well it might have had something to do with this mess:

 I couldn't even shut this door anymore!

Something had to be done so I guess I just got fed up with it and threw it ALL onto the guest bed.  I had tons of scrap stashes, too.   A drawer full, a bin, and an old scrapbook carrier full.

Oh wait there was this little basket, too. 

Then I started organizing all the larger pieces by color.  This was fun, actually.

But the not so fun part was folding it all again.  It took me several days of going back to work on it since Sam {The Destroyer} couldn’t be near by to ruin my hard work.  I just measured the shelve and cut a piece of cardboard about that same size to use to fold my fabric with. 

Here’s some of the progress.

Then I also got started on the shelf itself.  It’s nice that it fits perfectly in the odd nook part of my craft closet, but I felt like it needed to be white to match the rest of the closet innards.  Being white also makes it less distracting from the fabric itself. 

I used Zinsser Bulls Eye 123 Primer because I already had a quart of it in the garage.  I’m not sure why I bought it originally, but I used it as a primer for these shelves.  They are just crappy Ikea shelves from an old entertainment unit we took apart, so it wouldn’t matter if I screwed them up somehow.  It took 3 coats of primer and then 3 coats of white paint to get these shelves to be somewhat decent looking.  I wish I’d just kept the shelves themselves on the unit, because the paint got scraped off pretty easily when I put them back in.  I just took a can of spray paint to the messed up spots. 

I drilled and screwed in 4 wheels into the bottom—all by myself.  My first attempt at using the drill!! 

I also drilled and screwed in handles. And here it is in the closet!







































I put a board on the floor to help the shelves easily roll in and out and it works perfectly!! 

I bet you are wondering what happened to all those scraps, too?  They were separated into color families and put into Ziploc bags which were then put into a smaller bin.  Smaller to allow for the roll-out shelf to do it’s thing.  If my scraps outgrow this bin, then it’s time to purge again.  No reason to hold on to tons of scraps that won’t get used!  The large yardage, denim, sweater material and large pieces of felt and flannel got organized and put into the big bin. 

Phew!  Overall it took two weeks, but so worth it!

I actually kinda feel like sewing something now…