With the IKEA goods secured, Saturday was project day! Time to renovate my office. It was something that was probably long overdue, and Erin came up with a good solution that would look fancy without the fancy price tag.
Tack själv, IKEA! (Thank you, IKEA.)
I would show you the “before” pictures, but 1.) I forgot to take any and 2.) even if I had, I would be embarrassed to show them. My office is in a loft area just upstairs from our living room. I’ve always loved the space, and I have a nice desk and had a cool bookshelf, but it was a bit of a hodge podge of furniture and felt a little crammed and not cohesive.
So Erin’s plan was to use a series of bookshelves, with doors on the lower part, side to side to side across the back wall. The first step was clearing out a ton of books from the three old bookshelves from the office before moving those out. Amelia was a big help.
Then began the renovation. As I discovered picking up those bookcases from IKEA the day before, they are apparently made, not from particle board, but from the remnants of a dying neutron star. That kind of mind-warping density is the only way I could account for how heavy those boxes were.
So I wound up taking apart each box in the garage, and carrying the parts of each shelf upstairs in several trips. It worked out pretty well, and I definitely got my stairs in for the day.
Amelia was very intent on helping. She helped move the books, and even pitched in putting together the bookcases.
Henry was content to sit in any box he could find.
And Asta was not cool with all this change going on in the house, so she spent much of the day either hiding or giving us nervous looks.
But when all was said and done, the finished product was fantastic. My Room Rater score has gone up substantially already.
The room feels much more open, I have tons more filing and storage space, and Erin the master decorator even found places for a series of goofy office totems that have been with me for years and years, including my Superintendent Chalmers and Human Bullet figurines, and my vintage can of OK Cola.
So kudos to the whole team for all their efforts, and especially to Erin for the master plan. Having such a sweet new office almost makes me excited to get back to work on Monday! Almost.
