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1.27.2014

The Productive Office

I've been promising myself for the past couple of months that I was going to blog more, and then I hopped on the blog and promptly found myself with writer's block.  It seems that blogging about house changes is a lot harder after a long break, c'est la vie.

We have had some big projects and some small projects taking place. The big project being that I finally completed my office desk, installed it and made myself comfortable in the office right away.  It's been under near constant usage since October with both school and professional projects at hand.  Consequently, taking photos that didn't insinuate that I am a complete slob has been nearly impossible.

I've also been kind of waiting on a new bookshelf for the past couple of months, I found one at Ikea that was well within my price range (under $200), modern, white and had drawers.  So excited!  Until I went to put it in my online basket and discovered that it wasn't actually available for purchase online.  Damn.

Thankfully, I have a wonderful friend Brittany who happened to be going to Alberta for vacation and promised she would brave the inner depths of Ikea for me and bring back a shelf sometime this week.  So hopefully soon I will have the FjÀlkinge shelf to house my books, printers, papers and all the other wonderful clutter that comes with working from home.


While I wait for that I might as well show you how far the office has come since it's first inception. In case you don't remember this is what it looked like at the beginning.





And now, we can all revel in the glory of what it has become.


The desk was far more time consuming than I had originally anticipated, each board was reclaimed barn wood which meant that none of the board edges were milled straight.  Each board had to be hand planed to fit the board next to it, which meant a lot of measuring, fixing, planing and time.  Once all the planing was done the actual assembly was quite easy.  I ended up buying a biscuit joiner, and utilized biscuits along with wood glue to join each board to the one next to it.  This allowed me to have a really minimalist desk top that was also very sturdy.  

I personally like working in an L-shape configuration since it allows me to have a sketching and modelling area without all the materials invading on my computer space.  I decided to build each piece of the L as a separate desktop, primarily because it meant installation would be much simpler, especially in an older house where true 90 degree angles are pretty much non-existent.  Once each desktop was assembled I used tung oil to give the wood a nice finish and it really brought out the character in the wood.







An old pepsi crate made for a good shelf and storage unit for some of my most used books, trace paper and smaller office items.


I also picked up a couple Harvest Art Ledges from EQ3 to create a little inspiration space above the desk where I can put books relevant to projects or special art projects from Anique.

In order to mount the desk I went with the easiest and cheapest option available, heavy duty shelf brackets.  The brackets are designed to hold 500lbs, and while I haven't tested them to that extent they have managed to hold the desk and all my computer junk without any problems.  I also bought a cheap ikea cord manager to keep my menagerie of cords somewhat controlled and off the floor.


I also ended up replacing the original yellow and white wool rug I had in the room.  Sadly my computer chair wheels wound up getting caught in the rug more often than not, which drove me crazy very quickly.  I spent some time looking for new options, and finally decided on a low pile carpet tile for three reasons. One, being cost.  I could create a 9x9 "rug" for less than $350.  Two, durability. If a tile gets wrecked or worn out I can replace those tiles easily without replacing the whole floor.  Three, sustainability.  Flor, the brand I chose, will take your old worn out carpet tiles, break them down and recycle them into new products.

I went with Fedora in charcoal because at $10 a square it was affordable and it lent some much needed simplicity and modernity to the room.


 I also found a used T. Vac Chair by Rod Arad on kijiji for a mere $50, so I snapped that up for extra seating in the office.  That corner will eventually house the new shelving unit, so some re-arranging is still to occur, but for now it's my cozy reading corner.  The wooden sling chair was an old school project which I hadn't quite had the heart to get rid of and then Anique adopted it as her own, and now spends a lot of time in the office playing with it so it has found a new purpose and new life.

The antique frame is hopefully soon going to house an inspiration & pin board for projects on the go if I can find just the right metal for the insert.

Overall I'm really very happy with how it all turned out, and it really is nice to have a functioning productive office space where I separate myself from all the hustle and bustle of the remainder of the house.



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