Our den, phase 2!

 

Our den/office has been a work in progress.  When we first moved in it was like this.  While I liked the look of the room it was not very functional.  It looked nice all closed up but when I opened up the computer cabinet it became a mess!  Plus I felt like I was working in a black hole in that cabinet!

 

 

 

 

 

This is what the room looks like now.  (sorry about the bright sun)

 

 

 

 We wanted a wall of bookcases and decided to go with the IKEA Billy Bookcases.  We chose a few different styles of Billy.  One has solid doors at the bottom and that hides our office equipment.  The rest are perfect for our books, my special finds, and storage boxes  for paperwork. 

 

The desk is our old dining room table from our last house. We had it in our basement.  I painted it with Annie Sloan (of course) Chalk Paint in Aubusson Blue.  I love this color!

 

We reused the leather chairs we already had in the room.  They are worn and comfy!

 

 

This file cabinet is from Bombay & Company.  We have had it for a few years.  Now that I am looking at it I have the urge to paint it!  :)   The lamp and shade are from Target.  I got the shade on clearance for $6.00!  I like the pop of color!  The starburst mirror was another deal I found at Homegoods.  The blue candle is from Peir 1.





 

 

This little wall space is one of my favorite spots.  





The cabinets with the doors are great for hiding things.  We have all the cords running in there as well!

 

 



 

 

 

 

This room is almost done.  I just finished up trimming out the bookcases.  It was a much bigger job then I thought, but I love how they turned out!

 

Stay tuned..........

 

Have a wonderful weekend! 

 

 



Office: Part Two

 

The Ikea Billy Bookcases were a breeze to put together. Just ask TJ!  :) They fit on the wall just how we pictured it.  Here is the office in phase 2.  It is pretty close to being done.  My next project will be fancying up the bookcases.  I plan to either paint the backs of them, wallpaper with a pretty linen wallpaper, or I am playing with the idea of replacing the backs with beadboard.  I also want to add some molding to beef them up a bit and fill those little holes. 

 

Here is the room as it is now.....

 

 

Here is what went on in that room:

*installed bookcases on back wall. 

*painted the table turned desk in Annie Sloan Aubusson Blue.
This table was our old dining room table and was just sitting in our basement.

*I kept the brown leather chairs, they are comfy and I still really like them!

*Filled the bookcases.  I love books so I am pretty excited to have a place to put them!  I love old and new books so the shelves are filled with both.  I also now have a place to put my special finds! 
 
*The left side of the cabinets serves as our working area.  The doors hide files, papers, office supplies, and wires etc. 

*The skinny cabinet on the end also holds papers and files etc. It is nice to not have to look at that stuff but to have it within reach!

  

 

 

The row of three glass cabinets above the desk is more space for books and special things! 

This black filing cabinets is great.  We had this in the old room. We have had it for many years, it is from The Bombay Company.    It actually has the look of all the library catalog tables I love!  (even though my little drawers are all faux ones!)
The sunburst mirror is from Homegoods.  I found it in the clearance section. I was planning to paint it but then decided I liked it left alone in its teaky colored wood.  The lamp and lamp shade are from Target.  I got the shade on clearance of course!  I love the pop of color it adds!  The little blue candle holder is from Pier 1.



That little gray table used to be a little brown table in our living room.  I painted it with Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in French Linen.  It is perfect in this room because it 3 drawers for storage! *This room gets a lot of sun, it was hard to take a picture on the window side!

You can read about that table here:

http://myeverchanginghome.blogspot.com/2013/06/more-annie-sloan.html




This wall area is one of my favorite spots in the room. The burlap corkboard was a DYI project. You can read about that here:

http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5262909746498862430#editor/target=post;postID=5594785172068549898;onPublishedMenu



  The W is from Anthro and I just love it!  Also love those pictures of my kids when they were little!  The heart plaques are from a anniversary trip TJ & I took so have special meaning.  The little gold sunburst mirror just caught my eye at Pier 1 and was perfect for that spot!

I love filling the shelves! It is a mix of special gifts, flea market finds, and old and new books.

This room works so well for us!  Having two spots to work is so nice!  There is so much work space too! (before in my little black work hole I had a teeny tiny spot to work!)  I love having a spot for everything! I am so much more organized! 

 

 I am going to be having fun with those bookcases! I have a few other projects I need to complete first.  My loft and guest room are currently in a state of chaos!  After that I will tackle those shelves!  :)

 

 

 

 

 

Our office....part 1

I spend many hours in our office.  I am in here first thing in the morning with my coffee, several times throughout the day and since I am a real estate broker many nights too!   It is a bright sunny room!  It was not always so bright and sunny.  It used to be a pretty dark room.  Lots of dark furniture.  Although looking back at these pictures I did like the room before.  It  just was not functional.  When the cabinet doors were closed and the chairs were in place it was a pretty room. 

But it always looked like this......(with a big chair in front of it)

We bought that black cabinet for our old house.  We did not have a separate den.  We used the cabinet in the living room and it worked great in there.  Back then I was not a realtor, I did not have too much to keep organized.  This cabinet was not working for me now.  I felt like I was working in a black hole!  TJ also does work from home and there was only space for one!

 

Here are a few more pictures of the den before..

 

 

There was a big map picture above this file cabinet.  I had just sold it on craigslist before I took this picture.  The room had an old world feel to it.  (most things were from Bombay Co.)
 

 

It was time to make this room more functional!

 

In comes IKEA....

 

I had been researching bookcases and found some great reviews on the Billy bookcases from IKEA.  TJ and I went to check them out.

I knew I wanted an entire wall of bookcases.  I wanted the look of built in bookcases, without the built in price!  These guys were the way to go! 

It was pretty neat, we could plan our entire bookcase system out on the computer.  This helped so much!

 

We decided on white, but that black looks pretty sharp!

 

We bought: two full bookcase units, one book case unit with  partial glass doors, one half sized bookcase unit, and a row of three top cabinets. 

 

Everything (except one glass door) was in stock.  We loaded up our car and headed home to start building. 

This actually part fairly easy.  (TJ is good at this stuff)

 

TJ carved holes in the bottom of the bookshelf for all the cords to feed through.  This worked great.

 

The wood table in the picture is a dining room table we had in our last house.  It has been stored in our basement for the past 8 years.  I decided to use that as our desk. 
 

This is a work in progress.....stay tuned!  :)