Office and Playroom Reveal

Over the past couple of years we’ve had so many home projects.  Our house was nice, but it needed a little work to spruce it up, and we wanted to really make it ours.  We changed out the dining room light fixture, bought new bedroom and living room furniture, built massive storage shelves in our garage, painted almost all the walls (many more than once due to a certain someone changing their mind), built 4 huge floating wood shelves for the living room, and ripped the carpet out of 5 spaces to put in hardwood flooring.  We did this all ourselves, which makes it feel even more like ours.  We put our time and sweat into this place. 

I like things organized and each time we take on another project it inevitably means that our house is a huge disaster for awhile.  When we refloored in the living room we had to level out the floor.  It was horrible and almost everything in the kitchen, living room, and hallway was covered in a thick, fine dust.  I thought it would take forever to get things cleaned.

We just finished a huge project; turning the cluttered office into an office/playroom.  The office had become a dumping ground.  We had random pieces of furniture and just kept adding things we didn’t have room for elsewhere.  We each had a desk, but both were typically covered in papers or things, making them impossible to use.  It was bad.  Luckily, I have pictures.

This summer, a month before school started, we decided it was time to do something about the office.  We also felt that Adeline needed a space other than the living room.  We decided that we needed a long desk and debated making it ourselves, but it was pretty clear that we don’t have the time to do this.  I figured I’d rather pay someone to make it and spend the time with our little girl.  

Mr. C moved everything out of the office the last week of July, a week before he had to go back to work.  He did the floor alone this time, finished in a couple days, and it turned out amazing!  The desk took awhile due to some changes, but we found someone who was reasonable and seemed to have great work.  We paid and waited.  In the meantime our hallway was full of stuff, our bedroom had random pieces, and a dismantled desk was by the living room.  It was a mess.  A stressful mess.  We bought a rug on clearance and found a chair also on clearance that was a final sale.  They sat in the empty room waiting to be used.  And then, at the end of September we got the desk and two matching floating shelves.

I drove home from work as the desk was being delivered, and I worried that it would look horrible.  We didn’t discuss what the cabinet doors would look like and I worried that we’d hate it.  I walked in and was floored.  It was so much better than I had imagined.  Over the course of the next couple of weeks we began bringing things back into the office.  I had to make some decisions about what to keep and what to let go, because I didn’t want anything in there that we didn’t really need or want.  This past weekend we finished the space, for the most part.  I still picture a little table and chairs for Adeline at some point, but for now we’re done. 

It’s a space I love more than I thought I would.  It’s actually my favorite place in the house, other than Adeline’s room.  The desk is beautiful, functional, and really perfect for what we needed.  The gallery wall pops on the teal wall.  The wall that used to hold the gallery wall is playful with letters spelling out “CREATE” and it’s the perfect space to display Adeline’s artwork.  It’s everything I hoped it would be, but so much more than I truly expected.

It’s so nice to finally have everything finished.  Well, almost….we still need to do the backyard.  And, a little bit to the front yard.  And organize the garage.  Okay, so maybe we’ll never be truly done, but the projects are definitely getting smaller at least.