Good morning and hello to all you out there still under a pile of snow.
We are experiencing a very un-Canadian winter in our area this year with not much snow and really not much cold either. I suppose the one bonus to all that snow if your power stayed on is plenty of time to catch up on your reading, blogging and tv bingeing.
Well one of the things I had planned to catch up for January was reclaiming certain areas of our house. During the chaos of Christmas we were while staying generally clean and tidy throughout our home, not necessarily staying organized with stock and paperwork.
My office space suffered and not really just through Christmas. It has been getting beaten for about a year or so since we got the keys to the shop.
This room has for the last few years been performing multiple duties including etsy stock storage, computer room, sewing room, fabric storage, home paperwork storage, book storage and small plant room.
As the shop continues to get busier and without me really needing more manpower yet, I have transitioned the etsy shop to be a pillow store and no smalls anymore. This means I don't need to store everything in this room and my sewing out grew the this space last spring in here as I now work off a 3 table and rack zone in our heated garage instead.
So needless to say this room has dropped a few of its hats and can now focus on being my office for the hoards of paperwork I always find myself needing to do.
A paperwork genie I am not and I can find lots of reasons to distract myself into not doing it so when the room I need to work in is driving me mad with shit everywhere you can bet I wasn't focusing properly.
So last Sunday I had Trevor take down the ikea shelves and replace them with sturdier braced pine ones that I could load to my hearts content. We took everything out of the room and sorted through every last drawer and file and then I went back to cleaning and re-vignetting.
The wonderful part about redoing my office space is I do not have to think of how any other person will function in here except for me. No one else needs to sit here, they don't need to put their drinks down. I can be as colourful or chaotic as I want. I went through boxes and drawers of stuff and pulled out all my little bits of collections that don't find a home in the house, the books I have jammed in suitcases because I don't want my living room to be too crammed and put them all on display.
The easel in the above photo is from my sister in law because she knew how much I wanted one. The print is a fabric print from artist Heidi Lange and the 2 magazines are the ones our homes appeared in last year.
I moved my table/desk on an angle so I can look out the window and see my shelves but mainly not have to walk around to get to the printer.
Collection center #1. I have had that mask for years and it has been in my closet so I used an old lamp base and mounted it on top. Plants, african basket, bronze cuffs, jars of spools, green shoe forms, moon goddess from a trip to the Dominican. It's all set out for me to enjoy.
And my new shelves. Less homogenous, and more me.
I unwrapped all my previously kraft papered books, got all my design books out and made lots of clutter filled vignettes of all my faves in one place.
The white secretary continues to be the shipping zone for etsy. I store my boxes, tissue paper, string etc. here along with the paper roller for convenience and speediness.
I've made a bunch of these hanging planters for the shop so made a birds nest fern for myself as well. Clean air and looks fab.
I guess my lesson for this is sometimes it just doesn't need to be perfect. A styled home is wonderful and my main spaces won't be changing but this space is where I go to work, be inspired and even play (i got those colouring books too) so this space is allowed to be less matchy and more me.
Have a great day everyone
Meg
