Home Office/Studio Area

Home Office/Studio Area

The beginning stages

Hi guys! Today I'm going to show you a glimpse of the home office/studio area I have started to create for myself. I use this space for home management, blogging, gifting, crafting, and all those other million little things that pile up on my to-do list! *Shout out to Jen at I Heart Organizing who also calls her area her "studio" which I love!

Brief history: For the first two years after we got married, Ricky and I lived in a tiny little 500 sqft space that was super affordable but severely lacking in space. We are both people who need our own space and time when working on things, so it was a little difficult in our one bedroom apartment. We created a tiny little office area by putting a little folding table behind the kitchen table and turning one of the chairs to face it during "office" time and turning it back around for eating. It was cramped but we made it work!

I couldn't find a good picture of the space in our old apartment, so this is me at Valentine's Day, and you can see the little table and printer behind me. Teeny but workable, no?

Then, this July, we moved in with Ricky's parents while waiting for our new apartment (we've been on the waiting list for a while!)  We easily doubled that square footage in their basement, with two bedrooms, a family room, kitchenette, and big bathroom. They gave us this whole space to use as a psuedo-apartment! (Um, talk about generosity. These people are awesome sauce and we are so lucky to have them.) The second bedroom is used for guests and an elliptical, but it already had a desk in it! Score! We used it companionably for a few weeks until Ricky's school started up, and then he starting camping out in there pretty often, so I decided I needed a separate space.

At the very beginning--stuff from around the house mixed with Martha Stewart items from Staples & See Jane Work items from Office Depot

I bought a little desk from Walmart and set it up in an empty-ish area of the family room. I wanted to wait and show you all when it was a little more complete, but we just found out that we're moving in to our new place next week! Yay! Happy dance for our own space, but it means that this area will never be done at their house, since I need to start packing it up to move. So....here's what I've got so far!

My prize from a friend's birthday party at Dave & Buster's...what can I say, I love post-its! And it fits right into my home management binder-genius!

More recently--gathering more items as I go.

I LOVE office supplies. Seriously. And I love displaying them in a functional and cute way! Here: buckets from dollar section at Target, filled with chalkboard accessories, magnetic clips, binder clips, and clothespins. The rectangular thing to the right is an envelope holder. The white inboxes and seafoam organizer are Martha Stewart products. They hold home management papers--the rest of these are in the bottom drawer.  

A peek in one of the drawers on the left of the desk--receipt holder, extra binders, cute push pints, ect. 

My blog planner, my home management binder, and in the background, a desk organizer from Martha Stewart holding pens, pencils, and tape. To the right of that, two metal organizers holding push-pins and safety pins. These have now moved to the fridge (I put magnet strips on the back) since they're not items I use super often at my desk. The business card holder in the front holds my 10,000 reasons cards from church--it's our mission to reach 10,000 people in Lincoln!
Check out cplace.org/10000reasons for more info!

Another Martha organizer, holding magazines, folders with current projects in them (dressed up with washi tape labels), to-do lists that fit in my discbound blog planner, and other office supplies like stamps, labels, hold punch, and lots of post its! The "Don't Forget" note pad now lives in the front drawer of the desk. 

This little shelf is borrowed from the in-laws (like much of the furniture we use here!) and will be replaced by a larger black bookshelf once we move into our new apartment. It holds greeting cards, future give-aways for my blog readers (stay tuned!!!), extra Martha Stewart supplies in the seafoam colored box, my camera, and my extra business cards in that multi-colored box (which I created from an old cardboard box and washi-tape).  The organizer on top is from Hobby Lobby and it is the bomb. I've had it for a couple of years and I love spinning it to find my supplies. It holds ribbon, labels, colored sharpies, gift tags, and scissors. 

Paint and supplies in the white bins--there will be storage space for these at the new apartment that isn't on the floor.
Also, some canvas art that I scored on clearance at Target and thought would fit well with the colors in this area. I hesitate to put extra holes in my in-law's walls though, so I'll wait until we move to put them up. 

That concludes the tour for today! Stay tuned as we get into our new apartment-a whole new storage and organization challenge! Is it weird that I'm super excited? :)

*See my inspiration for this space at Be Simply Organized --I love Sam's office, it's gorgeous and it just makes sense to stick to these colors when you have all that Martha stuff on display!
*By the way, I'm not being compensated for the Martha plugs, I just love her products!

You can stay up to date by following me on Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram & Twitter and subscribe at the top right of this page. Sharing is caring :) 

If you're a brand or company and would like to do a collaborative post, review, or advertisement, please contact me at sponsor@lorimerliving.com.

XOXO, 

Jaclyn