Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Office Space

A couple weeks ago, JEGs and I took this sweet little baby home with us:


It's the Canon i560 Printer/Scanner/Copier/Photo Printer.

Oooooo. Sexxay. And BIG.

So big that the only place we could put it was on the bookshelf in the Great Room. This, of course, spurred my inner design diva and decided to make an office area.

Now, I don't know if I've stressed this enough, but Falconhead is only a mere 900 square feet. Space is very precious to us and if there is anyway we can better utilize dead space, we will figure out a way. Also, JEGs and I both have laptops, so we have no need for a desk. This, in turn, made it hard to designate any area as our 'office'. We had everything scattered all over the apartment. Pens were over here, hole punch over there, it was an [organized] mess.

Enter, stage left, the bookcase in the boudior.

This bookcase is identical to the one in the great room, but just a different color. I bought one when I lived in an apartment for a TV stand in my bedroom, and JEGs liked the idea so much he bought the same thing for his apartment. When we moved in together, we had two.

The bookcase in the bedroom had become a catch-all for useless electronics. There was a DVD player that wasn't hooked up, a VCR, a bunch of random cables, four towers of burnable DVDs and a binder with guitar tabs.

I was over it.

One afternoon, I decided to move all the books from the Great Room and put them in the boudior..


..and after a quick trip to Michaels (complete with 40% off coupon in hand) I created a little area to store all of our office-like needs.

I got these great bins in two different sizes- a two larger bins for printer paper and bigger items (such as a hole punch) and two smaller bins designated for pens and staplers. They are super sturdy, and I love that the texture mimics the fabric on the couch.


I quickly typed up labels on the computer, added a little cardstock, and popped them on each bin for easy identification.



It is so nice to have everything in one, central place now.
Share with me, friends and follwers, where is your office area? Do you have a designated room or are pens shoved into whatever drawer is closest?
Always & Forever,
ME







6 comments:

Shannon said...

Somehow they make cell phones that are the size of a circus peanut but they can't minimize these printers at all. I've got two big hunking ones in my office that take up too much valuable real estate.

And I have an office until baby numero dos arrives. But the office is strictly for storing paperwork & such, my real office is on the couch with the laptop.

Give me that fish!

Erica said...

When we moved, we purged most of our furniture but somehow moved into a larger house. So now we have an entire bedroom dedicated to "office crap" but only have a desk, a filing cabinet, and a box. We even had to leave our office chairs in Michigan! The room is the emptiest room in the whole house and it is the most depressing thing to walk by. Ick.

But like Shannon, my true office is also on my couch with my laptop.... exactly where I'm sitting now. I love your office boxes and will probably copy your style when we move into a smaller place. Such cute labels!

Danielle and Clint said...

GREAT idea!! I love the labels with the bins!

Nina said...

I love what you did with the bins and the labels! It looks awesome!

Cassie said...

can you come organize my office?!

and ps i didnt realize we lived so close! i love finding more locals in the blog world.

how are wedding plans coming? we just signed our normandy contract the other day!

nina@themissadventuresofnina said...

Once upon a time we had an entire room as the office/craft room. Now a closet in the hall catches all that, plus a corner of the living room is where the desk came to die. I'm in love with your dresser BTW.