Business Time.

Maybe it’s been the nice spring-like weather we’ve had (although short-lived… hello again, rain) or just my constant nagging need to organize and re-organize our house, but I’ve definitely been in the ‘spring cleaning’ type of mood lately… feeling the need to purge, to de-clutter, to spiff up the house, to have a garage sale. This past Sunday, Nick and I were sitting across from each other at our dining room table – me, at my sewing machine finishing my latest project...

...and Nick, on the laptop working on his real estate website. I realized as we were sitting there that we hardly ever use our dining room table for dining… which is probably what a lot of people will admit, since everyone we talk to says the same thing. The thing is I want to use our dining room table for dining, and want to have another space where we enjoy working on other things… like an office or something – what a novel idea!

We have an office/guest room that is only seldom used, mostly when we need to use the printer (which is in the office) or when my sister is in town and stays with us. Other than those times, we mostly just have an under-utilized room of about 100 square feet with a queen-sized bed taking up about 60 percent of it… what a waste of space! 

So we got to scheming and decided to take a trip to Ikea in search of some affordable and efficient solutions to create an enjoyable and functional ‘home office’ that we both could utilize on a regular, if not daily, basis. Nick could keep all of his files and do all of his real estate work and keep everything organized, and I could have a space to work on my crafts, use the computer, and whatever else I deem necessary and Business-y. We took some measurements of the room, agreed on a basic plan of what we were looking for, and headed to my favorite place to spend way too much time and money on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. By the time we left Ikea, we had eaten four hot dogs (still the best lunch deal on the planet) and purchased two desks, a room-size rug, and a giant 5’x5’ cube-y sort of shelf, along with fun baskets and magazine holders to fit. 

We also had to call Nick’s dad to bring his truck in order to get our new shelf home (which we really hadn’t planned on buying, but was marked down in the ‘as-is’ section – my favorite place – because of a totally unnoticeable small chip on the back side, and was exactly what we were looking for). I was thrilled with our purchases, but already kicking myself a little that I had just tacked more onto our Ikea credit card which by this point was only $50 away from being completely paid off… ugggghhhhhh, sometimes I think it’s me alone keeping that Swedish-designed Disneyland of assembly-required-furniture in business.

So now I am just aching to get it all set up… it’s driving me crazy letting it all just sit in the garage, begging me to let it populate its new home in our soon-to-be-redesigned home office. We decided to wait until the weekend since my sister will be visiting, and we figured she’d rather sleep on a bed than on or under a desk. I’m way too into this and will definitely post photos after the transformation.