House and Home Volume 1 Home Office

Our house is one reason for my heart to sing 196.  One really big reason.  I am so grateful for this sweet house that I actually was able to grow up in myself.  Now I have brought both of my babies home to the very same place that I spent my childhood days.  Sigh.

And now that we only have one house (here) I can really focus in on making this house more of our home that's unique for our little bunch.  So I thought I'd share little corners of our house/home that make my heart really sing. 

Let's start with our "home office" shall we?

As much as I love our house, it is not known for its wealth of storage space.  That's why we got creative.  We built these wall shelves this summer and put them up on the wall in an effort to create a "home office".  Really it's more like an "office wall" on the edge of our play room.

I wanted it to be functional, bright, personal, and pretty.  I didn't want it to take up a lot of space.  I also didn't want any drawers or cabinets to shove things into.  I figured that the open look would keep it running better because it would force me to keep up with it.

The top shelf features file boxes to store all of our guys important papers and keepsakes.  When they grow up, all of their stuff will be in one space and we can either hang on to it or gift it to them.  Until then, we can stroll down memory lane every now and then to remind them of their accomplishments.  It's pretty easy to keep up with so far.  197

The middle shelf features photo albums and a file box (see below) as well as repurposed baskets to hold finger paints and electric cords, an organization caddy, and mason jars with colorful choking hazard toys in them that are pretty but need to be played with when a grown up is present.  

The bottom shelf is like a desk/command center.  All of our electronics that need to be charged, our giant printer, paper, and miscellaneous go on this surface. 

The wall below features our special dates calendar, our family calendar, colorful birdy clips to hold important notes and such, and some art work. 199

Some specific details include:

(Top Left) Newly organized and labeled photo albums.  The numbers represent the years that can be found in each photo album.  As much as I enjoy some good photos, one of my goals for the year is to make a digital photo album that I can print off at the end of the year.

To the right of that is our file box.  Between going digital, and maintaining paperwork as we go we are able to keep our important files down to one box vs the 2 drawer plastic file cabinet that we used to keep them in.

After cleaning out that file and getting rid of stuff I was able to throw this whole pile away (after shredding it of course!)  That just feels good! 200 (whaaaat?)

(Top Right)  This is just another angle of the first picture.  I really wanted to show you that we painted the ceiling yellow to contrast the white walls.  It was a risky move, but I have loved the decision from the very minute we finished. 201 It is so bright and happy, yet oddly subtle.

(Bottom) Under the bottom shelf is where all of the cords live.  They are tucked away into these baskets.  You can't see the baskets when you look head on.  This keeps a cord mess from being everywhere. 202

Is it done?  Heaven's no!  But it is off to a start that makes me happy.  So far, it is accomplishing most of it's goals.

Still to do?
Better cord organization box
Frame to use as a white board of sorts.
Pictures for organization caddy
Paint pretty design on file box

I am linking up today with the "Dog Days are Over" Challenge at the House of Rose Blog.  If you want to see some more organization inspiration, then go HERE