The "Office"

The word "Office" is in quotes because right now it's nothing close to an office, but I do have a plan. Plans, even. And I got G to mostly agree to them, while conveniently ignoring that half of it was his idea to begin with.

Cameras covered in chocolate take horrible pictures of horrible rooms

SO MUCH CLUTTER

I think I used these photos months ago before the previous roommate took his stuff away, but this is a good representation of what it still looked like a week ago, but take away the computer and add a broken guitar to the shelves over the TV. Plus, I've thought a lot about how ugly this room is. I feel the need to write about it some more. The TV stand is huge and cheap, and the couch is broken and not that comfortable, and you can't walk through the door without knocking into it. Forget opening the other door. The other door, that doesn't have a doorknob, by the way. It has duct tape over a hole. And the paint job is terrible. And those shelves above the TV make the already narrow space feel like it's coming out to eat you.

Honestly, it's as if painter's tape didn't exist

At least the last problem has been solved! In a leftover fit of organizing madness from a weekend of decluttering another room, I, wait for it, took down the shelves. It was very impressive. I removed the guitar first (pro-tip: remove things from shelves before taking them down), G unscrewed the highest screws and I took out the rest of those mothers. We still need to yank out these black things that the screws went in, which will apparently cause showers of plaster, so that's waiting until all of the furniture moves into a different room, which it will. At least it's more open now:

Exciting blank walls

I also organized our books. He's not happy about it. I separated his Hesse's.

Yes, I realize using books as a decorating ploy is SO plaaayed, but I've gone through enough practical organization systems in the past (genre then last name, Read vs Going to Read vs Never Going to Touch Again, etc.) that I feel entitled. Look how awesome this is:

Via hola! design and Pinterest

So I did this:

Not sure about the red shoeboxes, and I need to figure out something to put on the empty top shelf now that I took down the, ahem, CD tower from the 90's, but I still know where everything is if I need a book and it looks vastly improved already. Especially considering that if I had gotten lazy and quit halfway through the process, the room would look like this, with a bonus dead body because G would have killed me:

Yes, I started organizing CD's by color on the lowest shelf.

Sorting. Not quite there, but at least books are on shelves?

I did all of that on a weekend when he was at work. It's hard to describe the franticness that sets in when you realize a room looks like the above picture and you only have an hour to put everything back or in a closet before your boyfriend comes home and starts asking questions, but it's weirdly exhilarating. COMPETITIVE SPEED BOOK ORGANIZING.

I'm not going to lie, I went to the Strand and bought a few $1 books with brightly colored spines to augment the shelves, but I made sure they were books I also would want to read (Vonnegut, The First Word: The Search for the Origins of Language, and three or four other interesting unheard-of books). Mmm, books. I'm finishing up with The First Word and it's pretty fascinating.

The Current To Do List:
Rip out the screw-holes and spackle over them
Fresh white paint (including the wooden shelves, and ideally the door and closet door that aren't pictured, but that's not happening)
Install a doorknob to replace the duct tape, chic as it is
Bust out a white lacquered Parsons desk, but a homemade version because that's a lot of money for five rectangles of wood
Move the bookcase from the second bedroom, AKA FutureDen, to where the couch is, ideally painted as well because it is old and unattractive
Desk lamp
Figure out laptop storage
Art (I have a big, super-colorful, stylized portrait of myself that's sitting in storage in FL, but that feels strange, to have a portrait of yourself in your office. But it's stylized! And by a legitimate artist!)
A chair would be nice

My dream, if I had a larger space and I'm guessing thousands of dollars to spend on that chair, that table, and those bookshelves:

There's no great source for this picture, but it's Isabel Lopez Quesada's work. Via here and Pinterest

It was G's idea a while back to turn this room into a home office, but I couldn't bear the thought of having a room in my home dedicated to work. I leave work every day for a reason, you know? That reason is that I'm done working. But a place to put my laptop aside from "on my lap on the couch" would be cool. Nothing specifically work-y will go in here, though. No rolly desk chair. No task lamp. No obvious desk-desk, hence the Parsons table. In my head, I've already made all the changes and painted and everything, and it's slightly disconcerting to walk in and see the couch and TV stand and stuff everywhere.

Oh well, time heals all impatient redecorators. Or something like that.

Next up: FutureDen, and my attempts at making mood boards and floor plans.