My Office / Dressing Room: Finished!!

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It’s been a long, long time since I’ve been able to share a truly “finished” space with you guys. And that’s why I’m so excited about today’s official “After” post for my office!

Let’s take a little tour to wrap all these projects up.

The white door below is the entrance from the hall.    Jane Office Finished6

Then, of course, we have my desk, which I built myself from scratch.  The art hanging over the desk is thrifted and handed down.

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The curtains are from Ikea, and the dresser is a family heirloom.  I’m hoping to find beautiful glass knobs to dress it up when I am in Italy on my honeymoon/anniversary trip.

On the wall over the dresser is a mirror that I had to fight for in the clearance section of Pier One (years ago) and then of course my window frame jewelry display, which continues to be one of the most useful items I ever made.

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On the next wall is my mid-century modern secretary, which folds out into a desk.  I use it when I work from home for my day job, since I have a separate laptop for that job.  My closet, with the Container Store shelving I installed, is still going strong.  I considered hanging curtains over it, but they would just get in the way.

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Oh! And under the desk I have my personal laptop and a power strip on a tray.  I actually use this to also charge things like phones, camera batteries, etc.  The tray makes it feel a little less messy and a little more like a charging station.

Jane Office Finished1 To the right of the closet is the exit from the office.  On that wall I hung my Neu Year planning calendar. Jane Office Finished9Above the door I have my hats on plastic-containers-turned-hooks, and these little plastic things continue to be the best hat hooks I’ve ever used.

Hat Hooks 1

 

All in all, I love the office and love even more that it is FINISHED!  It’s a huge improvement from a year ago when I was working with an Ikea desk and some mismatched old furniture.

Office Before

The office: BEFORE.

I’m not even sure I can call this a true “before and after” post because I didn’t want to waste a lot of space on the before. This room has gone through many stages, but three years into the process I finally feel that I’ve gotten it put together in a solid way.

Office Update: A Fantastically Huge Planning Calendar

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Note: This is NOT a sponsored post or review.  This is me just raving about a product that I love.

As a small business owner trying to juggle a day job requiring travel, and all the other requirements of life, scheduling and planning my time well is a struggle.  Especially long-term planning for goals and sub-goals, like around the holiday season.

To plan all this out, you definitely need to see the whole picture. And that’s something I’m not very good at keeping straight in my head.

Neu Year Calendar

So when I found out that two handmade business friends, Rachel and Kim, each used the Neu Year Calendar, I knew it was the perfect solution for my long-range planning problems.

The Seize the Year calendar shows the entire year on one large piece of heavy-weight paper (or coated dry-erase paper, you choose). Even better, it’s double-sided – one side shows the calendar in a portrait layout, while the other shows it in landscape.

Neu Year Calendar Portrait Layout

But my favorite thing is that this calendar isn’t from a mass retailer like Target or Office Max, it’s from a small business.  It’s their only product.   And with that comes fabulous, friendly service.

I chose the uncoated paper version so that I could write on it with pencil or pen.  When it arrived, it was just as awesome as I’d hoped. I had to hang it, and was too busy to build a beautiful frame like Kim did (silly me!).

I bought a lightweight painter’s canvas, painted the edges teal to tie in with my office, and attached the calendar using spray adhesive.  Because the canvas was so light, it was easily hung with Command Velcro Picture Hanging Strips. The only downside is that I didn’t apply the paper to the adhesive well, so there’s some bubbles and some curling edges.Seize the Year Calendar3

Also, I ended up drawing on it and scribbling on it in pencil and marker, so now it looks a bit messy.  But it definitely gets the job done.

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This massive paper calendar fit perfectly in my redesigned office, in the nook where the door opens from the hall into the room.  I can eye it from my desk at all times, which is perfect for keeping long-term deadlines on my radar. Jane Office Finished9

In the process of using it for three months I’ve realized that I’d do better with the dry-erase version, so I just ordered a new, dry-erase one.  I plan to staple it to my canvas over top of the old one.

And guess what? I discovered they’re on sale right now, which is even better!

For my mom, on mother’s day.

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Happy Mother’s Day to all you mothers out there!  I thought I’d take this opportunity to tell you a little about my mom, it’s something I’ve been working in for a while but never found the “right” time to post.

Jane Mom

My mom is awesome. She is the best piano teacher in the state of Delaware and is an absolutely amazing (retired) concert pianist.

Mom Grandma Recital Prep

My grandmother, doing my mom’s hair before one of her concert performances.

My mom and her dad, playing chess in the 60s. She is a killer strategist in games.

My mom and her dad, playing chess in the 60s. She is a killer strategist in games.

Oh, and did I mention that in addition to teaching piano, she also learned braille and taught piano to blind students for many of her younger adult years?

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My mom, taking notes in braille, while teaching a blind piano student.

She is stubborn and creative and extremely hard working and is talkative and loves to entertain. She should have been a Greek or Italian mom because she loves to have guests and feed them.

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Teaching young me to play piano.

Upon meeting her for the first time, Ryan left and said to me “It’s definitely nurture, not nature.”  He said this because I’m adopted, yet I too have all those traits.  However, I prefer to think that we are “determined,” not stubborn. :)

When my brother and I were young, my mom refused to ever let us have a Nintendo, but when it came to Legos, there wasn’t a set she didn’t buy.  She also stood in line for hours, multiple times, to get me the Cabbage Patch Kids and other silly toys I just “had” to have.

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From day one, my mom ensured I had a diverse selection of toys. :)

More importantly, she dove into educating us about interesting topics with such zeal.  When we studied dinosaurs we had puzzles and coloring books and 3-d models to assemble and camps and stories and books on tape to listen to. When we did constellations and the sky, she got us sky maps and glasses to look through and even took us to constellation camp at a local observatory and I still know more constellations than most people.

When my brother and I discovered and subsequently caught tadpoles in the stream, my mother turned it into a learning experience, buying a huge aquarium, checking books out from the library, and helping us create a safe habitat to watch them grow into frogs, then release back into the wild.

Little Jane Tadpole Fishing

Tadpole fishing, circa 1985?

I used to think that was normal parenting, but now that I’m older I see that not every parent is so enthusiastic about creating a home of learning. Of course, she also made us do math homework in the summer, even on vacations to the Grand Canyon, but no parent is perfect. :)  They just do what they think is best because there’s no manual to follow!

Now that we’ve flown the coop, she’s using that determination and killer work ethic to run the League of Women Voters and the state’s music teacher association as well as helping many other organizations.  The idea of relaxing is something that does not compute with her.  In fact, I suspect she feels guilty whenever she allows herself to sit down and read a book, or watch a movie.  I’m not sure why.

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I love her purse in this photo :)

The thing is, I love my mom and I want to see her spoil herself the way she’s spoiled others for so many years,  especially because for the last 8 or so years, my mother has been successfully battling a form of bone cancer.  Because I’m selfish, I want her to take as good care of herself as possible so that she can  experience the things she dreams of in the future with me and my family.

I think it’s an inherent “mom” trait to put other people and organizations’ needs in front of yourself.  This mother’s day, I’d like to remind mothers that they should take great care of themselves the way they care for others, and they deserve to be queen for more than one day a year.  I know my mom definitely does.

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My grandma (right) was also always rushing around, taking care of others, for 97 years.

And so, in the spirit of love, I’ll continue to lecture my mom, telling her to relax more and make more time for herself.   After all, she bossed me around (or tried to) for the first 21 years of my life.  Now it’s my turn!

I’ll just try and resist using that phrase mothers love:   “Trust me.  It’s for your own good.”

Easy DIY Farmhouse Table Idea

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When I built my Pottery Barn style desk, I had to take extra steps to ensure that the legs were installed in a sturdy fashion.  I detailed those steps – adding the tightly fit aprons, most importantly – in my how-to guide.  However, if you want to just build a simple farmhouse table without drawers, I wanted to let you know that there’s a much easier way to do it!

My Home Depot is making it much easier for me to build my own furniture.  They now have a selection of table legs of many lengths:

Table Legs at Home Depot | The Borrowed Abode

I found this all in the section with the different types of wood trim and moulding.

Next to all the legs that are sold at Home Depot you’ll find metal top plates.  To install the legs the easy way, buy the metal top plate. The idea is that you install the plate on the bottom of the table top, then screw the leg in.

Desk Building Legs Aprons2

Just like that, you’d have a table on your hands!  You’d probably want to run two support boards across the bottom of the desk, perpendicular to the top boards.  This would provide a little extra strength under the table top, since the planks are only joined with dowels and glue.

I know this isn’t a detailed tutorial, but I wanted to let you know about this option in case the idea of building the full-blown desk with drawers scares you!