Desk Organizational Plan

I’m a girl with a plan.  I love lists and planning and organization and this blog post has got it all!  To preface this blog post, and for those of you who don’t know Colby and I, I’m the planner in the relationship and Colby is the fly by the seat of his pants kind of guy.  We make a great duo.  Anyway, so one of the things we tackled this past weekend, the second most amazing transformation other than the kitchen cabinets getting painted (read about that back here) is that we started mapping out our organizational plan for the office space in the parlor.  And of course I had to map it out in blue painters tape:

Here is what you’re looking at in the picture above: the long line across the top is for a really long shelf, the box in the middle is for the small flat screen tv (it used to be my tv before cohabitation ensued and it was deemed too small by the man of the house and was destined for a life as a computer monitor…it’s actually pretty awesome…we hook our laptops up to it with an RGB cable…it even makes my netbook feel huge), the two smaller lines on the right side are for two smaller floating shelves, and the three lines on the left side are for these guys:

Those are three metal, hanging file storage units that I picked up from Target on super clearance about six months ago.  They were less than $5 each…total Target score.  So that’s the plan for the huge, empty wall space that’s directly above the desk area.  I wanted to really put that space to work and make efficient use of it for our office needs.  The plan is going to morph, I can already guarantee you that, but it’s a great starting plan.  And then there’s this space, which is another empty wall between the window and my side of the desk:

My game plan is some pink flamingo art.  Seriously.  I’ve got an idea of what I want to do, thanks to Pinterest of course, and I already got the go ahead okay from Colby.  You see, back when I first bought the house, I promised Colby no pink.  It’s my favorite color, but I promised.  I think he was just afraid that our master bedroom would turn into some pink fru-fru monstrosity draped in pink with lacy pillows and stuffed animals adorning the bed.  I love pink, but that’s just not me.  I’m more of a pink accent kind of girl.  So it surprised me that I got the go ahead to do a pink flamingo artwork project.  In return, I told him I would do something seriously butch in the room to make up for it.  Or maybe I’m owed one since I put his deer heads up in the living room (read about that one back here).

Anyway, back to the shelf.  Colby made me three brackets for the shelf and we also picked up the 8′ board that would be used as the shelf material.  Everything was smooth sailing until it came time to find the studs in the wall to hang the brackets.  It was important to hit studs for this shelf since it was going to be supporting alot of weight.  From books to manuals to magazines and other paperwork, this puppy was going to hold it all.  So this picture kind of summarizes how the stud finding process worked:

Not so good.  We only found three studs (oh how I love thee early 1900s construction) and the stud finder wasn’t much help thanks to a layer of sheetrock that we installed over the old plaster (this is back when we first moved in) since the plaster was in such poor condition.  Grrrrrr.  But at least we did find three studs.

However, those studs were COMPLETELY off center.  Now remember when I told you up front that I like my plans and how Colby goes with the flow?  I’m learning to be more like him as we go and not get so worked up when things don’t go to plan.  So what did we do?  We changed the plan.  We slid the long shelf to the left so all three brackets would reside on studs.  We even switched up the other shelves to make it look like we did it on purpose.  So we hung the brackets and moved on with our project.

Aren’t those cool brackets?  They’re based off a picture of some open kitchen shelving that I found on Pinterest.  Oh Pinterest.  We even tested out the shelf to make sure that we liked all the positioning before moving on to the painting and finishing steps.

And of course I tested out the shelf height to make sure that magazine holders fit and also that I could easily reach them.  Success!

Oh, and here’s a close up of the brackets.  According to Colby they were pretty simple to make, especially using his Kregg jig.

So here is what the plan is looking like these days.

And I couldn’t help myself.  I had to style up the shelf a little bit and moved one of the plants, or should I say survivors, to the shelf.  He seems to like it up there…for now.  He may stay…if he manages to live.  So the plan is to hang two of the file storage units by Colby’s space on the left, mount the tv to the wall in the middle (so we can both connect to it), build and install two staggered floating shelves on my side of the desk, and install one of the file bins on my side.  Oh yeah, and we still need to stain/poly the shelf and paint the brackets white.  Actually, at the moment the shelf is stained and polyed.  And now we just wait for the paint to dry on the brackets.

And because I love a check list, here’s what’s left to do in the good ol’ desk organization/make pretty madness:

• Install the shelf
• Hang the file storage bins
• Build, finish, and install two floating shelves
• Purchase and install the tv mounting bracket
• Move all of our electronics into the command center…I mean…desk
• Create a flamingo art project
• Find document storage containers to start organizing our office mess into (I’m talking magazine holders, document boxes, pen/pencil storage stuff, receipt storage, etc. etc. etc.)
• Organize and officially move into the office space (woot woot….this is going to be the fun part!!!!)
• Accessorize (the even MORE fun part)

And I can’t forget things like:

• Find a bigger rug
• Purchase industrial, manly desk lamps (for Colby’s sake and to balance out the flamingo art)
• Find matching desk chairs instead of our mismatched pair…our chairs are like socks on laundry day…they just don’t go together

So that’s the plan Stan.  We have sooooo much to do.  And by we I really mean me because I’m the organizational queen.  But you wouldn’t know it because our house is such a mess all the time.  But I blame our house being in a perpetual state of change, chaos, and renovation.  Sure, that’s it.  Have a great weekend everyone!

Pssst…So this weekend is a BIG weekend in our household.  See, it’s Super Bowl Sunday and the stakes are high.  Colby is a Patriots fan and I’m a Giants fan.  Thankfully, we didn’t know each other until after the 2007 Super Bowl when the Giants ruined the Patriots perfect season.  I fear someone is sleeping on the couch Sunday night and it’s not going to be Goose!