As I sit here on the living room couch, blogging while watching the Super Bowl (go Giants!) I keep sneaking glances over to the parlor. Why? We finished staining and polying up the storage shelf for the wall space above the desk and installed it and boy does it look pretty. Almost as pretty as Colby (he’s going to turn about five shades of red for that one).
Colby is awesome. He built the shelf (if you count trimming off the ends of an 8′ board “building”) and the shelf brackets in a few hours last weekend. I love how I just tell Colby,”I think it would be really cool if we built this for this here.” And then he disappears into the depths of the man cave…I mean…work shop and emerges a few hours later with exactly what I was thinking but better. He’s pretty much amazing. And just about every time he builds something for our home, I deem it the coolest thing he’s ever built. These shelf brackets are currently the coolest thing he’s ever built.
So after Colby attached the shelf to the brackets and “tested” out the shelf/bracket strength by hanging off of it like a monkey, we started to move into our office space. It’s starting to shape up a little bit, slowly but surely.
It’s looking a little rough right now. There’s still so much work to do for this space to reach dream work space status. Like cord control! We’re in desperate need of some cord control. More on that later once we figure out the optimal attack method to hide all those not-so-easy-on-the-eyes cords all over the place. But we did make a little purchase in the right direction on Friday night. We came home with a pair of industrial style desk lamps from Target. They only cost about $30 each which was pretty cheap compared to the Pottery Barn style lamps I’ve had my eye on which cost upwards of $70 to $80. I’ll settle. And this will help balance out the pink flamingo art work I have planned for the empty wall beside my desk chair.
Here’s the view of the desk space from the dining room. And for those of you who may be wondering, as you’re looking at the desk, Colby’s side is the near side and my side is the far side.
So now that the shelves are up and we’re starting to setup the space, let’s take a look at the good ol’ to-do list because you know how much I love a good list.
Install the shelfHang the file storage bins- Build, finish, and install two floating shelves (these are the blue tape lines above my section of the desk)
- 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 (working on this as I speak…I mean type…yeah I’m a total multi-tasker)
- Accessorize (working on this too….eeeeeee!)
- Find a bigger rug
Purchase industrial, manly desk lamps- Find matching desk chairs instead of our mismatched pair…our chairs are like socks on laundry day…they just don’t go together
Some of the tasks we’ll be able to take care of immediately, like the pink flamingo art project and the file organizing and accessorizing tasks. Other things may take some time, like finding a bigger rug. I just can’t seem to find one that I love AND that’s affordable in an 8′ x 10′ size. Finding matching, or somewhat matching, desk chairs is also going to be a difficult task. Mostly because I have this grand vision of finding old, wooden swiveling desk chairs with arms somewhere. Those items will end up being tasks that we’ll just fall into someday. Oh someday our home will be perfect! Who am I kidding?!
So I shall get back to my full-on, organizational assault on the mess that’s accumulated in the desk area. Let’s just say, I brought four boxes of old paperwork up from the basement Saturday morning and have been shredding/organizing for the rest of the weekend. It’s a project that’s required four trips to Staples in a day and a half. I’ll be back later this week for some details on this desk organization attack. It’s quite exciting.
Pssst…Grrrrr…the Patriots are winning here early in the second half of the Super Bowl, which makes Colby a happy camper but a grumpy Angie. Here we go Giants! Any other DIY bloggers out there blogging with one eye on the game?! Just me? Oh well.
Psssssst…And you can check out our initial desk organization plan in last week’s post back here.
