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Sunday, March 19, 2006

Extreme Makeover Home Office Edition

I am like a good girlfriend of mine. When I have something really bad happen the place that I am in holds a bad connotation. Monday night we were in my office when Olga delivered the bad news. This is not a good thing. You know how much time I spend in my office? This is where I work, so quite a bit.

Tuesday morning I told D about my bad karma theory and asked if I could go buy a new desk to give the room a bit of a change. Well the project turned into a bit more than a new desk. D's parents took us up to our local IKEA store. I found the desk I wanted, but of course it was larger than my old desk thus eliminating the space for my small bookshelf and printer table. I need somewhere to put my hoards of plant books so I bought wall cabinets to put the books in too. At the beginning of the store they had a display room that was painted the most beautiful color of aqua. It was paired with a clay brown and I fell in love. So after the IKEA adventure we made our way to the local Mega Home Improvement Store for some paint. I decided to just go with the aqua. (Thank you Ikea for now listing the paint colors: Benjamin Moore Passion Blue)

Wednesday afternoon I spent the day painting my office. I actually finished it in one day. Thursday we put together the new desk. Which of course was not without incident.* Then of course D says this room would look really good with some new stained molding to match the desk.

Friday we hung the wall cabinets and Saturday we made a trip to the other Mega Home Improvement Store for new Hemlock molding. Of course the molding had to be stained. Also not without incident.**

So here I am sitting in my pretty new office. Almost totally finished. I have some more artwork to purchase (of course the old artwork just didn't work) and some touchup painting to do. So say it with me... "Bus driver... move that bus!!!"

Before

After

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Oops, I forgot to add my footnotes.

*When we brought the large corner section of the desk into the house I peeked inside the box. It was the wrong color and the wrong shape!! It of course would not fit into either car so I called my friend Kathou who graciously drove up from Olympia to help me exchange the desk top. (Olympia=30 minutes from Tacoma, Tacoma=30 minutes from IKEA) Kathou you are the best!!

**While applying the wood conditioner to the molding I decided not to do it the Swedish way. You know, walk back and forth to the can. So I set the can on one of the pieces of molding as it sat on one of the saw horses. As I was applying the wood conditioner to the opposite end of the piece of molding the can was sitting on I picked up and turned the wood. Thus upending the brand new can of wood conditioner spilling its entire contents onto the patio. Smooooth.

8 comments:

Maggie said...

It looks so nice. I love the paint color -- kind of Robin's Egg Blue. And what a great idea; just redecorate the bad karma right out of the room. Here's to a fresh start!

6blessings said...

Looks great!! Congratulations on the new office.

Jennefer said...

I feel like you do about associating bad feelings with places. After bad things have happened in my life I have rearranged all of the furniture and then cleaned everything really well- as if I am getting all the bad off or something and starting over. This also clears my mind. Do I sound neurotic?

Anyway, I think making over your office was a brilliant plan- and it sounds like you got more than you bargained for. It looks great! Good for you- you deserve it.

Jenny said...

I am glad you did something you can enjoy!
it looks awsome.

A Room to Grow said...

cool color. looks really nice.

CarolinaGirl said...

Oh my! That is absolutely gorgeous!. Ikea is my favorite place in the world!. I am just like you. If something bad happens, I need for the area around me to be changed. I am into the Karma theory myself. Good for you...it is so refreshing of an office space.

Anonymous said...

Wow! It looks fantastic! I also agree that changing something in a room helps relieve me of bad feelings in a room. A spiritual spring cleaning, if you will. I love those book shelves! I want to use something like that on an outside wall with a baseboard heater (so of course we can't use standard shelving), but am having problems selling Eric on the idea. I also love that color! Of course, I really liked the old color as well.... I'm having paint envy! ;) I would love to paint an accent wall in our house, but Eric doesn't like that idea. I'm still working on that one.

Anonymous said...

Very nice. And believe me I totally understand. IAL :-)