House Tour: Office Update

In March of this year, I blogged about a project I was doing with Eric when he was in town that involved staining wood. I showed this picture:

 And then, like a good blogger, I didn't talk about that project again for a while. And that is because it has been ongoing and incomplete. I finally have recognized that perfection is not attainable and am going to show part of the project. 

I realized I have never blogged about our office until I actually started the process of fixing it. I referenced this room (which is our 3rd bedroom) when I blogged about buying a chair for it but other than that, have not shown it. Here is what we started with, pictured upon moving in and putting our stuff in the room:

It was actually white when we moved in (like everything else) and we painted it a coffee color, left over from paint from the old place. 

Well so after working with Eric on our staining project in March and then doing a few things here and there, here's what the room looks like now:

The project I mentioned was to build this corner desk for Jake since he is in school and studies at home. We bought one piece of furniture grade wood from Lowes, had them cut it in half and trim one of the pieces so we had an 8 ft and a 6 ft piece, stained and polyed the wood, connected it with some hardware piece (it was flat metal and had holes for screws), put braces in the wall that we screwed it in to, and set it on a filing cabinet I sprayed black and a small shelf I sprayed black as well. 

For the shelves above, I bought brackets from Lowes and took the shelves that were in our front closet (we didn't need them since we are hanging coats in that closet now). I love that we were able to reuse nice wood that is original to the house. 

We got the cork squares at Target - they were originally hot glued to the walls (!) but that didn't work out so well and now they are nailed in with very small nails. The white board is from Target too and Jake uses it a lot when he studies. 

 On the wall by the door, I have the chair I bought from Gary's Antiques with a shelving unit I had in college (but sprayed black), my $15 Walmart lamp, Jake's grandfather's jersey, and my birthday present from Brie, which is an art piece of owls with maps in the background that we got at Cooper Young Fest.

What I love the most is that this room went from a place where extra things we don't use go to a room that we use every day. The orange futon is still in the room, just on the opposite wall. I still want to get something to hang above it and will show that when I do.