An adventure in designing our Home Office ....

Sometimes I have good ideas. (pat pat - me patting myself on the back).

One thing I wanted in my home when we were shopping around for one 7+ years ago, was a study.  Not sure why but I just wanted one.  I think I had high hopes that I would always have the opportunity to work from home even if it was only for a day or two a week.  Plus with my husband's line of work, it is nice for him to have the opportunity to work from home too.  Especially late at night when the kids are sleeping and he's trying to get ready for a presentation, trial, etc.

We waited a bit before purchasing furniture.  We bought "assemble your own furniture" from Office Max only to be totally disappointed when the credenza started falling apart.  We blamed it on ourselves but after "disassembling" it to throw it in the trash a couple of weeks ago - it wasn't the assembling it was just a piece of "crap" to begin with.  The desk was still in great condition so we gave it to my father who accepted it like a child accepting a gift from under the tree at Christmas.  No sooner did it make its way into my father's home and it was already set up for use!  My very "mature" father still works, he consults for a company he has worked for, for close to 60 years.  With his newly created work area, he can work comfortably from home during these winters months and we don't have to worry about him traveling in the snow!

While looking online for office furniture we stumbled upon an idea that was in the IKEA catalog.  I loved it so much that I stole the idea pretty much.  Much of the things they showed were discontinued but after making a trip up to the IKEA store in Canton, Michigan at the end of December, we pulled together a fabulous room from pieces we found at the store.  In the process, we managed to cut what we though we were going to spend by close to $500.  Cha-ching!!!  The trip to IKEA was an adventure.  For some reason, my husband and I thought we had more room in his vehicle than we did.  Not only did my husband and I go shopping but we also brought along my daughter and son and their respective booster seat and car seats.  After purchasing our items, we attempted to put the items in the back of his SUV only to realize we couldn't fit everything.  (Insert your favorite expletive, because we did!)  So my husband goes back into the store and attempts to have what can't fit get shipped to us.  Only to find out, that they don't ship past Toledo, Ohio and we live at least 1 1/2 hours from Toledo going east.  (Insert more of your favorite expletives, because they were flying out of our mouths at this point!)  My husband then says to the person behind the customer service counter - "give me your best packer because we need one!"  Let me tell you, we did get the best packer and my kids were packed among the goods like sardines.  Probably not the "safest" thing we have done but we had no other choice.  Well, I guess we could have rented a truck to go home.

We had to make a pit stop in Ann Arbor as we had "lin-ner" plans with my oldest brother and a friend of mine.  Getting the kids out of the car in the pouring rain was a challenge!  Getting my daughter back in the car and buckled into her booster seat was an insane task - I had to contort my body in ways I didn't know I could bend to get her buckled, and all along I could hear in the back of my head my brother and my friend (who is a pediatrician) looking at me and thinking we are pushing the envelope on safety.  Trust me, I was thinking that myself.  I said a little prayer and hoped that God would listen and make sure they (my children) were safe and comfortable for the 2 1/2 hour ride home.  I must say, the kids behaved fabulously and they never complained one bit about all the items surrounding them.  They took it in stride and pretty much thought it was kinda cool!

We did manage to get home safely, although it was raining cats and dogs on the way home and you could feel the car moving in the wind and hydroplaning.  We all were relieved to be home once we got there!

Oh and did I say I had a sinus/migraine headache that nearly had me vomiting?  That was special!  And that my son who was in the throws of potty training?  He did awesome, no accidents the whole day!  Got to love that!!!!

We stacked the goods in the dining room and a week later began assembling pieces each night until my living room and dining room were filled with book shelves and desks.

Just a small sampling of the furniture stashed in the living/dining rooms.

Meanwhile, we picked out paint and the following weekend we began painting the walls a soft silver-gray with an accent wall that joyfully shouts bold green!

After the walls dried, we began to hang the necessary items on the wall.  We decided to measure out everything and place the mollies in before putting on the last coat of green paint.  This way we could mark on the walls.

I painted the wall one last coat of green (so I thought) let it dry completely and began screwing in the shelves.   We started with a simple "shelf" and then moved to the hanging bookcase.  Bad idea!  My intellect was telling me that the shelf was too heavy to be supported by just "mollies" and god-forbid if a manufacturer of any hanging item with predetermined screw-in spots could actually make it the appropriate length to be screwed into at least one stud!  So we attempted to put up the shelf only to realize that we were going to be left with huge holes in the drywall.  Fortunately, we both (my husband and I) agreed that we had to bag the hanging bookcase idea and began patching up the 3/4 inch in diameter holes in our wall.  I was beyond disappointed and upset.  All my hard work and I wasn't close to being done and more work was now being added and another coat of paint needed to be applied.  Tears streamed down my face and the expletives flew out of my husband's mouth.

So we waited a week, so we could compose ourselves, get back to an IKEA store (this time in Cinncy, since my husband was traveling that way by car for work) we bought new shelves and picture hanging shelves.  To be honest, I like this look better anyway!  We patched up the holes, I repainted the wall and we began the process of hanging shelves.

To cheer me up, my curtains arrived from Crate and Barrel - a find and a steal!  A find because they were just what I was looking for in a black and white pattern, but a bonus was that the name of the pattern was "Zoey" and that was my dog's name.  The windows I was covering up was one of the window she would look out of and sleep by!  The "steal" was that they were on sale, and if you've ever purchased from Crate and Barrel, you want the item on sale!

We decided that the hanging bookshelves that caused us so much grief would be screwed together and made into a tall floor to almost ceiling bookcase.  We then with small "L" brackets fixed them to the wall at the top to ensure that it wouldn't topple over.

We made a trip to Crate and Barrel since they were the only store that had curtain "tie-backs" that matched the other hardware in the room.  We were hoping to be able to bring them home with us that day only to be disappointed once again, the local store (which is 30-40 minutes away, a drive across town) didn't have them in stock and they had to be shipped from their warehouse in Chicago.  Bummer.

So to my complete surprise the tie-back arrived yesterday afternoon while I was picking up my daughter from school.  My hubby put them up on the wall and the project is now done!

If you know my husband and I, we don't do projects very well together.  We almost ended our marriage over building a deck and I'm sure some neighbor kids learned new curse words that summer sadly.  But I am proud to say that we only had a few "exchanges" of frustration towards each other.  We learned how to take a step back and know our limits of frustration and to stop before things got out of control.  My husband is not a proclaimed handy-man, but I am so very very proud of all his work on this room.  He exceeded my expectations!

We now have a room that not only I can do my work in, but the kids can be creative in as well.  And in the meantime, I get a little bit of remembrance of my Zoey every time I am in the study.

I will leave you with some photos of our masterpiece.  Before pictures were not an option because the room was embarrassingly hideous!