February 2011

A couple months ago my therapist, YES MY THERAPIST, told me I needed an office of my own.  I’ve been working in an office/study/playroom in the front room of our house and it’s been driving me slowly crazy.  I really needed a space of my own, someplace to go to close the door and make conference calls.  Someplace besides my closet, where I was working/hiding from the kids while making cross country business calls and silently slamming my bum against the locked door to keep the children out.

I love the study, but I’ve outgrown it.  So Viktor and I sat down and had a heart to heart, and tried to figure out how to carve some office space out in our home.  Turns out, we’ve been sitting on gold.

Not literally, although wouldn’t that be nice?

But we’ve had this empty, non-purpose room in our basement we’ve never known what to do with.  The former owners of our home had made it into a nightmare/craft room and we didn’t think we had it in us to turn it into something usable.  The photo above is the room when we toured the house before we moved in.

EEP.

We didn’t help matters.  All our junk accumulated into the depths of horrible and we just shut the door and pretended we didn’t have a basement.

It suited us just fine until we realized I needed an office space, and I needed it right now.  So while I was traveling this month, Viktor put his back into it and created an office out of nothing.  The total cost was well under $1,000 including flooring, furniture, and paint.

I decided, as a basement office, I needed it to be bright and cheerful.  Someplace I wouldn’t mind spending hours upon hours even in the depths of winter.  So we bought electric orange paint, the same color a dear friend of mine used in the office remodel of her 18th 19th century house.  It was gorgeous in her house.  She even painted the ceiling a lighter shade of orange, and I’ve wanted an office like it ever since.

Ready?

Before:

After:

It’s night and day, really.

These are the stairs leading down to the office.  There’s a closed door at the top of the stairs.

Shall I repeat myself?

A closed door at the top of the stairs.

New carpet on the stairs.  That was a surprise, I thought I was going to have to deal with the paint smeared, ruined, 17-year-old, forest green loveliness from the previous owners.  But we have new carpet!  And it’s beautiful.

I’m extra excited about the small things, like the track lighting Viktor installed in the cabinets above the desk.  New handles on the old craft room cupboards.  White baseboards instead of pine.

As per my request Viktor raised the cabinets all the way up to the ceiling.  It was wasted space, in my opinion.  Wasted, dusty space that had previously been filled with fake ivy.

My skin crawls a little just thinking about it.

I got the This Too Shall Pass print off Etsy from Nan Lawson.  It’s one of things my grandmother used to say to me growing up, and do you know what?  She was right.  Having that framed above my printer makes me feel like she’s with me a little bit, every time I turn around.

The clocks were Viktor’s idea.  I want to spray paint them silver or something, they look like the cheap plastic they are, but they get the job done.  One clock is on Salt Lake City time, one on California time, and another on New York time.  I’m usually on conference calls with both the eastern and western seaboard, and it’s more often than not I can’t remember what time zone I’m in, let alone the agency I’m on the phone with.  The clocks help.

The floor is probably my favorite part though.  It’s manufactured hardwood we bought from our neighbors who do flooring. 

I loves it.

I want to get my Petit Elefant logo done in vinyl, maybe above my desk somewhere.  I’d like a rug of some sort.  I need an inspiration wall/cork-board/homasote board And eventually, the white photo table I use to take photos will have to be moved to another room.

But can you believe?  Bieber makes me believe.

I’m sorry.  I really am.  It’s been a long couple of months around the Czarnecki household.  Longest of my life, maybe. A Justin Bieber quote was bound to make it in there somewhere.

I need to spend a lot more time, and a little more money on Etsy decorating the place, but for now I can’t believe my luck.

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