Office Updates

Three things drove me to do a little overhaul of my side of the office in the midst of a not-quite-finished guest bathroom, landscaping and yard care like the dickens, and setting up a nursery for Mr. Baby.  1) Many things getting moved out of Mr. Baby's room needed rehoming in our office; 2) Some things getting moved out of the guest bathroom needed rehoming in our office; 3) IT WAS A MESS.

See what I mean?  Good luck finding scotch tape in there.

As usual, I had let too long go between organizational overhauls and I was tired of constantly digging to find whatever random office supplies I needed for the given job at hand.  It was time to purge and restructure.  Plus I had started feeling like the masculinity of our office was taking over the whole room and I wanted to inject a little "clean and girly" vibe on my side of Steve's gargantuan computer monitor.

Here's where I ended up:

Less blurry in real life.

I only bought four things to overhaul my side of the office.  Cute little stacking containers rounded up small office supplies and enabled me to group them easily by type.

Got these in the clearance section at Staples.

Small storage boxes specifically meant to fit our Ikea Expedit unit allowed me to group collections of items by use and brighten things up in the room.

I heart Ikea.

High quality wrapping paper and the blogging world's ubiquitous Martha Stewart bookplates allowed me to transform donated shoe boxes into pretty custom-sized labeled boxes.  Most shoe stores will save castoff shoe boxes for you if you just ask nicely.

The bottom row of boxes now holds our bows, ribbon, wrapping tissue, and bags that used to be stored in the chest of drawers in Mr. Baby's closet.  The rolls of wrapping paper have been corralled against the end of the shelving unit using two Ikea plastic garbage sack holders (I can't claim credit for this genius idea, I saw it on Pinterest).

I still have too much wrapping paper.

I purged some books from my collection (it was fun while it lasted, Twilight) and others (favorite childhood books of mine and a few of my Mom's!) were moved to Mr. Baby's room.  The OCD freak in me loves that my books are now separated by genre- fiction in one cubby, non-fiction in the next, and keepsakes like yearbooks and Bibles in the next.

All of my printer-compatible paper now lives in one box together rather than stacked on its side which will make for less bent corners.  I love that there's a separate box for software and ink- things that I need to keep but don't access frequently.  Perhaps my favorite box is the one labeled "Mail Kit" that I stocked with our business size privacy envelopes, return address stickers, and stamps.  I LOVE having all the things I need to pay a bill or mail a card in one spot, and I love being able to simply pull it down from the shelf to use it and then close the lid and stick it back on the shelf when I'm done.  Life hack!!

Mail Kit, Ink & Software, Paper & Printables; To be filed.

The mercury glass collection that has lived in our guest bathroom since we finished it has found a new home on top of my side of the shelving unit, along with a silver serving platter that we got for a wedding gift and is too beautiful to put food on, and a picture of my co-workers (who are some of the best and most inspiring educators I know).  Overall my arrangement lacks balance, especially with so much going on at Steve's end of the shelving unit, but some of his office-y things (like the giant Corsair poster) may also be moving to Mr. Baby's room, so I'm OK with the lack of balance for now.

Work in progress, but much improved!

Now I'm just keeping an eye out for some art that inspires me and lends to the clean, girly feeling to go on the wall next to my degrees and I'll be completely satisfied.  Until the next time my organization gets unruly!