This week, I carved out some time to put the finishing touches on the office/studio makeover I mentioned in this post from July.
Yep, that's right - it only took me two months to finish. You know how when you go on vacation they say you're on "island time". Well, my friends, welcome to toddler time. Anywho, before said toddler gets home from preschool, let me take you on a little tour!
First, the office/studio half of the room...The main change is wall color, changing the paint from a dull off-white to a cool gray, specifically Behr Ultra Polar Drift. The color is a bit more blue/violet than I anticipated but I've gotten pretty used to it over the last couple of months.
While I've generally been trying to work with furniture we already have, I did add a couple of key items that have drastically improved my paper storage strategies, namely the printer stand and 9-drawer unit from the Alex series at Ikea. I've recognized the printer stand in particular in a number of studio images over the last few weeks on various blogs I read so I think it must be a popular solution for anyone who works with flat paper. This corner I've kept pretty simple/bare for now because I'd really like eventually to have either more wall shelving/storage over my desk or a new desk altogether, preferably one with a hutch. I'd also like a new laptop and/or monitor. Okay? Thanks.
To the left of the printer is my work space, where I assemble new designs, custom orders and the occasional felt project. The green bins underneath are new - one is for felt and the other one is for...everything else, mostly all my paper punches, various embellishments, stamps, ink pads, and miscellaneous craft supplies. The space is a little small but works surprisingly well so long as I can keep my work surface clear (that part is a little harder to accomplish). As you can see there are still a few items on the floor that I'd eventually like to move off the floor, and what you don't see in these images are the boxes and boxes of envelopes and a three-drawer unit of 12 by 12 inch paper in one-half of the room's closet.
I do have a little bit of wall storage, though, in the form of this single shelf, which holds my loose envelopes that I use for new designs, samples, and paper proofs, plus my ribbon and adhesive. The three support thingys underneath the shelf were really bugging me, so I bought a couple of cork boards to fill the space for tacking up various materials that might inspire a new design or project.
Most of the storage containers I've purchased over the last year or so are from The Container Store, which is like crack for the well-organized (or those who just aspire to be) - their prices are criminal in most cases and yet I bought not one, but two envelope holders for fifteen bucks a pop.
But occasionally I find something on sale and/or a storage solution in a product designed for something else completely, like the three section tray holding my ribbon and rolls of various kinds of tape, or the spice rack I'm using for all of my baker's twine, both found (on sale!) in the kitchen section. Let's take a closer look at that spice rack, shall we?
Now those are my kind of spices! Pretty fantastic solution to my Twinery habit, if I do say so myself.
The other side of the room is pretty minimal, functioning as guest space for, mostly, my mother-in-law when she comes to visit every couple of months or so. But wait, there's more! Is that a houndstooth patterned side table, you ask? Why yes, yes it is! The small white table that was there was just bugging me, what with its boring plainness, not to mention the goo left by corner protectors (baby #2, should we reproduce again, might just have to learn to avoid sharp corners the hard way).
So I covered it in duct tape!
$4.99 at Michael's and - voila! - you have yourself a new side table.
In closing, let me just say how much I love this room, this room of my own (kind of). It only took me a year or so to completely kick my husband out of our supposedly shared office (bwahaha!).
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