We redid the office!

"We" being my mom, dad, Ellie, Sammie and me.... LOL!

About two weeks ago, I walked into the office and got a bug up my.... you know. I thought, "This office is ALWAYS a mess and I need to do something to it!" At first, my goal was going to be to rearrange and then paint quickly. But as I thought harder and harder about it, I realized that it needed some serious work.

But the catch - I wanted to do this while Chris was gone WITHOUT him knowing what I had planned! Crazy, eh? I knew he was leaving on Sunday and wouldn't be home until Thursday. Plenty of time to clean the office, caulk, paint and put it back together.

Before I go through the process, here is a shot of the office before the redo:



As you can see, it was quite full of... junk. And very poorly arranged. I couldn't stand the shelves along the back wall - they weren't very useful and when you looked close, you realized how out of date it was. Ugh!

So the first thing I did was pull EVERYTHING (except the shelves along the left side) out of the office. Needless to say, this created quite the mess in the rest of the house - but worth it for the final result! Then I pulled the shelves off the wall. That's when I realized that there was no way to get around texturing - not just the walls, but the ceiling. As you can see in the following shots, the ceiling tape was very visible and the shelves left some pretty bad scars on the walls.





A big job. One bigger than I had planned! Whoops! How could I texture the walls and ceiling AND paint and caulk AND put it all back together by Thursday? Only one way.... with help. My parents called on Sunday night and when I told them what was up, they actually offered to come help! They ROCK! (But they are kinda like that - willing to drop things and help out. Very cool.)

So I cleaned, caulked and generally did a LOT of little things before they arrived. I also found the old wallpaper. Very interesting!





My parents showed up the next day and we managed to get the walls textured and the most of the trim painted white. The girls helped with painting the trim, thanks to my mother's patience!



And while mom and I painted, textured and caulked, my dad entertained the girls. Or was it the other way around?



We finally started getting the REAL paint on the walls and booked through to the end!



Finally! The room was coming together - just a few hours before Chris came home. Unfortunately, my parents had to leave before he got home - I wanted them to see his reaction. Luckily, he was THRILLED with the (almost) final result!

Note the printer station in the corner - that will be replaced by something shorter with slots for different kinds of papers.


Chris' reaction!


See the baskets on my shelves? Hiding a bunch of my random stuff - much nicer looking. (Still more to do, but it helps a TON!)


On a side note, this isn't completely done. We've got a little more left to do. Some cabinets above each work space, Chris gets a new desk and chair and a few other minor odds and ends. I'll post pictures when it's fully completed!!!

And finally, a slideshow with a bunch more photos of the whole thing: