Whatever happened to the office?

A while back I mentioned that I had decided the smallest of our secondary bedrooms was too small to function as an office, which is what I had initially intended it to be.  When we first bought the house, I had the movers put our old corner desk, over sized bookcase, and office supplies in that room.  It soon became a place to dump things that needed to be organized, and the door was kept closed to hide the mess.  If you can't see it, it doesn't exist, right??  Well...the room was just going to waste, so I purchased a futon for it, thinking that the room could double as an office/2nd guest bedroom. I don't know what I was thinking, there was no way that was gonna work. Eventually I bought a huge vintage desk, which I put in the sitting area of my master bedroom, making it sort of my office/craft space:

 This meant I could FINALLY convert that confused little bedroom into strictly a second guest room.  Remember I showed you a small glimpse into the disaster that I called the office?  You don't remember?  Ugh, I'm so offended!  Just kidding.  Here's the photo I shared of the office:

What you can't see in that picture is that there was a huge, semi-broken bookcase against the wall near the door.  It was filled with books we read a long time ago, and which we had no intention of ever reading again:

The desk was a mess!

 There were also four or five boxes full of stuff, waiting to be unpacked in the middle of the room.  It was bad. Here was my to-do list to prepare the space for paint and rearranging:

1.  sort books into keep and donate piles

2.  put the huge bookcase out on the curb

3.  purchase a smaller bookcase

4.  unpack and organize content of the 4 boxes

5.  paint the room Verdigris with leftover paint from the dining room

6.  arrange furniture in a way that would make the room feel less crowded

It seemed simple enough, but boy was it time consuming!  It is not easy to redo a room with a three year old running around, asking for your attention.  Needless to say, it took me a few days to get through the to-do list.

I moved a vintage vanity that my father in law brought up from Louisiana into the room (you can see it in the picture below). It was in the toy room for a while, but wasn't really being used.  I moved the broken down bookcase downstairs and put in some screws to stabilize it.  It went into the garage, where it will be used for storage...better than throwing it out, right?  The big extra cushion for my chaise went into a closet, and the boxes were unpacked.  

Here's a look at the room after the old desk and bookcase were removed and the vanity was pushed against the wall:

A couple of the boxes held tons of old pictures and mementos:

I found this picture box in my downstairs closet.  My mother in law sent Eva a gift in it and it had just been stored away for a while. I used it to store all of the pictures and keepsakes. Can you believe all of that fit in there?

Next, I painted the room using leftover paint from the dining room.  The color is Behr's Verdigris, and I still love it!

The futon is now clutter free.  The wall color actually matches the grayish color on the pillows, but I'm pretty sure I'm gonna recover all of the pillows in pretty fabric now that I have a sewing machine :)  The bad thing is that while moving the futon to clean the room, I accidentally broke a plastic piece that is pretty vital to holding up the mattress.  I have to order it online because it's an older couch.  I'll get around to that someday.  

I purchased and put together a smaller bookcase, but only kept the hubby's favorite books, my most helpful textbooks, and some recipe books (though they rarely get used).

  

Here's a better picture of the vintage vanity.  I absolutely love it, but it's in rough shape.  It'll probably end up getting sanded and re-stained when I return from Alaska.  Oh, did I fail to mention that I'm going to Alaska for a month?!  Welllllll.....I am!  I can't wait!  Anyway, back to the vanity...I'm thinking a dark espresso stain and maybe some pretty decorative knobs.  I would paint it a pretty turquoise or grey but my father in law probably wouldn't appreciate it too much. 

This room is tiny.  Here's a zoomed out picture of part of the room.  It still needs a lot of work, but it's come a long way baby.  I'm still trying to decide on decor for the big blank wall behind the futon.  I'll be adding my framed degrees and certifications above the bookcase, and will probably leave the small wall space above the vanity blank.

What do you think so far?  I'm excited about the changes, though I need to get some better pictures now that I have another digital camera (I'll go into details about that later). I am definitely glad I chose to make this a second guest room.  It was too small to be a craft room or an office.  Just being able to leave the door open is nice now that all of the clutter is gone.  I'm really looking forward to finishing this room when I get back!