Office is ready!

This weekend was nonstop. We busted ass and finally finished refinishing (say that three times fast) both my office desk and bookcase, unpacked and filed a bunch of things that needed to be stored in the office, moved in a new couch, moved out the old couch, shampooed the new couch, shampooed the living room and upstairs hallway, got a new patio set for the front porch, and still found time to take a long walk at our favorite wildlife sanctuary. After all that work, I need another weekend.

First, the desk. Branden has been painstakingly staining, varnishing, and waxing this thing to perfection.
Remember, this is what we started with?



Here's what we've got now, after many hours of work:





I love it. This one was definitely Branden's project, and he did such a great job getting it ready for me! What a sweet guy. :)

I picked up a fun little knob for the desk drawer for a reasonable $3.95 at a local decor shop. It reminds me of Alice in Wonderland, which is definitely why I like it. It all came together really well.



Next project was the bookcase. Man, what a pain this was. The surface was made of that really shiny wood veneer, and I just couldn't get anything to stick to it. Let's refresh our memories with what we started with:



Well, here it is now, FINALLY finished!



In retrospect, I think a light sanding before I primed may have helped, but I'm not even positive that it would have made a big difference. After a coat of primer and two coats of paint, the lightest tap would pull all of the paint off, right down to that damn shiny veneer. Out of ideas, I finally used some polyurethane on it, and that helped to seal everything in. The surface isn't indestructible, but it certaily has held up so far so that's a relief.

For the inside panels, I cut two of sheets of poster board to size and then hot glued fabric on to them. Once the panels were in place, I glued them to the inside of the bookcase.



Because the panels fit snugly to begin with, and because the shelves would add even more support, I only needed to glue around the tops and bottoms of the two panels. It was an annoyingly long project, but I'm really pleased with the result. I measured and cut wrong a couple of times, so if you were to tackle a project like this and actually measure right the first time I think it could be relatively painless. Live and learn!

The room is finally ready for me to sit here 40 hours a week. And the timing was right down to the wire, since I start working at home on Wednesday! There's still some more projects planned, like a complete closet upgrade with new shelving and added storage, window treatments, and a bulletin board.

Remember that new couch I mentioned? Here's a sneak peak...



Cranberry! More on that switch later!

Everything and the kitchen sink

It's crunch time around here. I have just over three weeks to get my office in order before I start working from home full time. Prior to a few days ago, the office had been the dumping ground for our still numerous unpacked boxes and things to find homes for. So we've finally gotten down to business on this room.

The color scheme I decided on way back is cream (walls) and chocolate brown, with white and bright green accents. I got my color inspiration from a photo on the back of a paint chip. Don't judge me.

We picked up an unfinished hardwood desk and have been staining and finishing it the past week or so. Here it is before we started working on it:





And here's the desk, in progress, after a couple of coats of ebony stain:



(Notice the piles of boxes still in the corner...)

Branden topped it off with a coat of mahogany to bring in some more brown tones. Now it just needs a few coats of varnish and a sweet decorative knob for the drawer, and it will be ready for my 40 hour work week!

The next office project is painting this bookcase:



I'm going to prime it this weekend, along with the matching filing cabinet that you can see in the very top photo. I'm not sure which color I'll make them yet, but I'm leaning towards white. I want to adhere some decorative paper to the inside part of the bookcase--something graphic in my color scheme--to give it a little extra interest. Hopefully I can find something good!

Moving on from the ongoing office project, my crazy need to organize had me tackling something that has been driving me nuts lately: under the kitchen sink. Here's the chaos I was dealing with:



It was enough to make me pretty much homicidal every time I opened those cabinet doors. "How did it get like this??" I asked myself. So, I picked up some cheap bins at Target for around $5 each and spent some time reorganizing. I know it's a super minor change, but the result makes me so much happier.



Ahhhhhh. So calming.

And yes, I know I'm crazy. But these kinds of things make me happy. So suck it.