One Project Closer

This week’s Before and After is brought to you from our old and new home office. 

When we looked for a house three years ago, one of the criteria for our purchase included the home having at least four bedrooms… One for us, two more for kids or house guests, and the remaining one for a home office.  We had a home office in our prior home and had grown accustomed to sitting in it for hours working on our computers (which both happened to be desktops).   This year, I upgraded my 7-year-old PC to a new Dell Vostro 1400 laptop, and all of the sudden Kim and I found ourselves trading the laptop back and forth on the first level.  Rarely did we walk upstairs to use our desktops.  In fact, we only did when the other person was on the laptop and we were forced to.  This led to the purchase of a second, identical laptop for Kim.  The office started seeming more like Siberia.  There’s were still great resources there, but who really wanted to visit.  We’d much prefer to sit in front of the TV with laptops on … laps.

At the same time we began to find our home office too confining, we received news from friends, BJ and Kimberly, that they will be moving back to the area from Scotland so BJ can pursue a Ph.D. (Congrats, bud!).  They are planning to stay with us for a few weeks/months while they shop for a place in this area and get established in jobs, etc.  Since Lori is already living with us due to the house fire and we’re not sure when she’ll be able to move back into the townhome, it seemed like the signs were all pointing in the same direction: downsize the home office to make room for more people.

Kim and I had talked about moving the computers to the first level of our home once the kids were big enough to use them, anyway.  The catalyst of more house guests just sped up the move.  We started combing Craigslist for a computer armoire that would house all of the computer stuff in one place, and would fit in with the rustic/country look we like.  Since we like using our laptops on the couch, and the kids can use them sitting at the dining room table, we didn’t need to be able to work at the armoire sitting down.  We found a woman about 30 miles away in Crofton selling a Pier 1 Imports solid pine armoire in very good condition for $50.00.  We contacted her, met her at her storage unit, and hauled it away in our minivan on the same day.  (This armoire retailed on clearance for $300.00.  Yep, we LOVE Craigslist).

The pictures below show the result.  We’re still in the process of cleaning out the office upstairs and Craigslisting lots of things we no longer need.  We’re also still looking for where exactly to store our file cabinet, the only other essential thing from the office.  Our master bedroom closet is one option for the short term.  Once we finish the basement, we’ll either build or buy a pine file cabinet to go with the armoire.

Before (the Home Office):

After (Office in an Armoire):

Now it’s your turn!  If you’ve had any great Before and After successes recently, link in your posts below (and be sure they have a link back here).