The Office in a Closet

Hello, friends! I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Years! We had the best time with my family and I didn't want it to end, but I guess we all have to get back to reality at some point, right? We just finished putting away the Christmas decorations, and while I'm sad to see them go, I'm happy that the house is back to normal.

Today, I thought I'd share our first house project of 2012! This one has been a LONG time coming.

With our baby boy on the way, we decided to make what we currently call "the gray room" (or, more often than not, "the junk room") into the new guest bedroom to make way for the baby's nursery in the old guest bedroom. I know, it's confusing. On top of that, I really wanted to have a craft room/office to put all of my junk in. Unfortunately, we ran out of space to have a designated craft room, so it was decided that the teeny tiny closet in the guest bedroom ("junk room"/ "gray room") would have to do.

Here is what we started out with:

And here is what we came up with a few days later!

I LOVE this little space. SO much. I was kind of obsessed with putting it all together with stuff we already had, so I'm happy to say that with the exception of the board that we used for the desktop and a couple of baskets that I picked up at Ross, everything you see had been lying around our house or garage.

We even painted the closet with some leftover paint from our Master Bedroom makeover. It looks really light in the pictures, but I promise it's there!

This office is a holder of many things. I wanted to be able to store my sewing machine, sewing supplies, fabric, gift wrap, scrapbooking supplies, printer, stationery and cardstock, tools, ribbon, crafting and bow-making supplies, and general office supplies in this teeny tiny space. And luckily, we got it all in there! I even have a few empty baskets, which makes me happy :).

I stacked all of my Better Homes and Gardens magazines (my magazine subscription of choice) underneath a few of the baskets. The magazine holders are pretty little linen things from Ikea and they have printer paper and cardstock in them. You can see my absolute favorite wedding picture displayed in a frame that had been hiding under our guest bed for some time :).

All of the stuff I use the most often is on the main desk. It's amazing what little jars and glasses can do for your organizational skills.

The top shelf was already in the closet--we just removed the clothing rack that used to reside underneath it. The second shelf is from Ikea--I bought it over a year ago but hadn't used it. Bryan trimmed the sides up so that it fits perfectly. The desktop is particle board that we got at Home Depot. Bryan cut it to match the width of the top two shelves. The paint looks a little uneven in these pictures, and that would be due to the fact that I jumped the gun and took pictures before we put the polyurethane on top :). It looks much smoother now, though!

I've had the fabric that I used for the skirt for a little over a year. I've always loved it, but didn't know where to put it. I sewed a very basic curtain and hung it on a tension rod (that we already had) to cover the printer and other storage bins that are underneath the desk (which is where you can find all of my scrapbooking and wrapping supplies).

And here are a few pictures with the light on, just for fun:

So there you have it! We are kicking off the year in a very organized fashion....which is very exciting to my dorky OCD self.

Have a great week!

I may be remember to post this at a few link parties, which can be found here. (: