New Updates in Our Office, Part 1

What a great week-end!   Mr. Spring and I were busy getting in touch with our wild side (more details on that later).  Mom and Dad enjoyed their empty nest by spending the Easter week-end on a bicycling trip.  Hope you all had a good one.

 

Well, our office is finally finished.  Yes, it took a lot longer than we expected due to some breaks we took, but we are so happy with the way it turned out.  There are lots of pictures and descriptions, so I broke it down into two posts.  First, I’ll give you some background.   We have  an extra room on the first floor in our house that could be used as a bedroom if we added a closet.  The previous owner had the walls painted deep red and the ceilings black and used it as a movie room. (We got rid of that set-up really fast).   Since I work from home when I am not traveling for work, we decided to make it into our study.

Here are some very old pictures taken with my iPhone.  I moved everything around before I realized I forgot to get good before shots. I originally had my desk in the corner of the room.  This roll top desk was a hand-me-down from Mom when they down-sized, and I absolutely love it.

 

 

The one thing about our office that they do not show in the magazines is that it is a real working office.  We both have tons of books (which we want to keep.) We also have lots of papers.  As much as I would like them to all go digital, at this point it is not going to happen.  This photo shows the back wall of the study before the transformation.  To hold us over while we were waiting for the upgrade, we used an Ikea bookshelf.

 

 

This was our reading corner. The black Ikea chair is super comfortable, so we decided to hold onto it.  Again, here you can see some more of our books.  (I should add that we both also have Kindles that are full of books).

 

 

On the left of this photo, which you cannot see, is another hodge podge bookshelf filled with books.  This is a good sized room, but there it was not well-organized.  We just weren’t getting the full benefits from it.

 

We decided we wanted to rearrange the office and turn the back wall into a wall filled with built in bookcases.  We also decided to cheat and use the Ikea Billy bookcases.

 

 

The first thing we had to do after we assembled the bookcases was remove the track lighting that the previous owner had on the ceiling.  We had an electrician close out electricity to these lights and  to the outlets that were going to be behind the cases.  We planned to have trim all the way to the ceiling to make for a custom look.

 

 

Once the track was removed, I had some touch up work to do.  I have to say I am not a fan of doing anything with the ceiling.  The angle kills my neck.

 

 

Next up, we removed the baseboards.

 

 

We also had to remove the window trim and cut it down just a tad to make the bookshelves fit.  In the spot under the window we thought a window seat would be perfect.  (You can see traces of the red the previous owner used.

 

 

Once the trim was removed, Mr. Spring installed the bookcases to the walls so they would be secure. (Thank goodness he is really handy).  In this picture the bookcases are taller because we bought and added the Billy bookcase extender.  The extender gave us more storage for all of our books.  Trim to hide the seams will be added to the area that is being held together with clamps.

 

 

I painted the trim pieces to match the bookcases before we attached it.  The color I used was Dove White by Valspar.  I am happy with the match up.

 

 

Once we had the bookcases in place and the window trim the right size,  we nailed the window trim back.  This was the first time I used a nail gun, and wow, it makes life a lot easier.  I now see why Mr. Spring says he is a huge fan of that purchase every time he uses it.

 

 

Once the trim was added, we no longer can see the seams between the two bookcases.  There was also a gap from the extension case to the ceiling.  That is where the upper trim/molding is coming into place.  We decided we had some books and papers we could hide, so we also bought the doors that you can use with the Billy Bookcases.

 

The next step was working on our window seat.  Instead of buidling one from scratch we bought a smaller cabinet from Lowes.  I painted it the same color so it would match everything else.   Mr. Spring work hard to make sure everything was level.

 

Next, Mr. Spring cut a top to fit on the cabinet and added some pieces for the cabinet to have a built-in look.  He also attached the cabinet to the wall to make sure it was not going to move when we sat on the seat.

 

Progress has been made.  We’ll show you the completed room later this week. 

 

Cheers!