Sorting Out Life...

Now that I have my new office, I'm wanting to get really organized with all of our paperwork.  So, I thought a good place to start would be sorting the mail when it comes in.  It is so easy to get a big stack of mail on the kitchen table that ends up being not only an eye sore, but also makes you lose bills and other important docs.  I didn't want to take up space on my desk, and I really didn't want to look at bills all the time... who does?  So, I decided to fill up one of my empty walls with a mail sorting system.  Like before... my office budget is still non-existent low. 
Target is one of my favorite places for home stuff, and I love their little place in the front of the store where everything is just a buck or two.  So one day while scavenging around in the dollar spot, I found these.

Just $2 each!!  I surfed on over to Pinterest for some inspiration and found this cool idea for hanging baskets on the wall.

I figured if they could get their baskets to hold vegetables, mine could hold a few magazines!  The only thing I didn't like about my baskets was the inside.

They all had really bright colors.  This could be cute in a different area, but with all the color already going on in here, I decided to take it out.  I also didn't want the handles on the baskets, so I just gave the handle a good tug and it broke loose.  This made a hole in the pink fabric, so from there all I had to do was pull the fabric to break the stitching loose. 

I needed to label the baskets in order to make a sorting system, so I printed these off the ol' laptop and glued them to some pretty scrapbook paper.

I'm the treasurer for my church in case you were wondering :)

I hot glued these to the front of the baskets and Chris put them on the wall for me! 

So far it's been really functional and I like the way they look on the wall.  How do you sort your mail when it comes in?

Brooke  Y

The Door to my Heart

So, the last time I left you, I had showed you my office after painting the walls and the trim.  It was already looking A LOT better, but it was just an empty room- now came the fun parts.  Since this room was going to be an office/ craft room, I knew I needed a lot of work space.  Being that this room isn't one of the main living areas in my house, the re-decorating budget was slim to none... so imagine my sticker shock when I started looking for desks....like this one from IKEA.

Yikes!  180 bucks and it's not even that big!  Okay so $180 may not seem like a lot, but it was more than I was willing to spend for something that didn't even have the space I wanted.  So, I talked to my dear sweet husband. ;)  We had some old doors in our basement- solid doors, not the hollow kind.  So, that handy-man that I married made me a door desk!

The doors were a little too wide, so he cut them down to size.  Then he mounted 2x4s on the wall to rest the desk on to give it extra support.  So the desk is actually attached to the wall which makes it extra sturdy.  I found the table legs online at iKEA for $3.50 each, but since we don't have an iKEA close, I was going to have them shipped... not a great idea.  The total for 4 table legs was $14 before shipping, after shipping, the total for the order was $44.  Yeah, that's right, the shipping was over double what the actual order cost.  So I decided to hold off on the desk until I could make a trip to iKEA.  When we went on vacation in May, I got to stop at the iKEA in Charlotte so I picked up 4 table legs along with some accessories for the office (the hat boxes stacked on the desk).  After the desk was standing, I painted it with glossy white enamel paint.  It's nice and shiny and you can wipe it down.

I pulled in a chair that I already had, set up my computer, printer and sewing machine, threw my supplies into baskets and jars, and what I was left with was an almost no-cost office re-do! 

The only problem with making a desk like this, is that there are no drawers.  I needed a place to stick some books and my office supplies, so I bought this cheap-o bookcase from Target for $17.  It gave me all the storage I needed and blends well with the desk.

Just for fun, here is a before and after shot.



I had been hunting for things for this room for a long time, so I got some really good deals.  Here is the breakdown of how much it cost.

Desk- $21.00 (doors were free, paint $7, legs $14)

Chair- $0.00- already owned

Bookcase- $17.00

Paint for walls and trim- $20.00

Curtain rod- $1.50 (was supposed to be $17 found it tucked away on a shelf at Walmart on clearance!)

Curtain- $4.00

Lamp- $10.00 (clearance at TJ Maxx)

Storage drawers- $0.00- alread owned

Accessories- $20.00

Total: $93.50

Not bad for turning a completely non-functional room into a multi-tasking one!

Brooke  Y

"We need to talk about your TPS reports..."

Okay, if you're reading my post title and wondering... "WHAT????" Then you haven't seen the movie Office Space.  So for those of you who haven't seen it, here's a little something to brighten your day.

Did You Get the Memo?



Office Space
— MOVIECLIPS.com

Baaahaaahaaa!!!  If you work in an office, you get it.  Now to the point.  Why am I putting random clips of Office Space on here?  You guessed it... I'm gonna talk about my office space. :)  My home office space that is...
Until a few weeks ago, the room I had allocated as my home office looked like this...
*Warning- these photos may be distrubing to neat freaks*

Yikes!  I know, I know... it was bad.  This room had turned into a hide away for all of the things that didn't really go anywhere else.  I didn't have a proper desk, so we always just set the laptop up on the island in the kitchen.  That worked okay, but unless we wanted to have a printer in there, we had to drag the laptop in here and balance it in our hands while we printed... not a pretty sight.  Finally I was fed up and decided to do something about it.  So I drug everything out of this room and started sorting.  It literally took me days.  Alot of it went in the trash.  I figured if we hadn't used it since we moved in, we wouldn't be using it at all.  I did find 4 phone books.... does anyone even use 1 phone book?  After everything was clear, I started to paint.  The purpose of this room was an office/ craft/ sewing/ all together creativity room, so I wanted something bright and happy.  I chose orange.  This paint is Olympic Paprika from Lowe's.

After the room was painted, I liked how bright it was, but there was something that I didn't like.  Finally it dawned on me.  The trim.  The orange paint looked horrible with the wood trim!  It was too close to the same color and just had to go. 

My husband is one of those people who thinks painting wood trim is a mortal sin, but since this was going to be my room, I got him to agree to painting it!  You have no idea how much of a feat that was!

Finally the room was painted!  I like it sooo much better with the white trim.  It makes it so much happier in here.

The white trim makes the window pop and really seperates the wall from the floor.  Well, the room is painted, and Chris made me something pretty special to finish it up, but you'll have to wait for my next post to see the rest of this office space re-do.... oh the suspense ;)

Brooke  Y