House Tour: The Study/Playroom

Once upon a time, when we first moved in, the hubs and I each had a room to ourselves.  His & hers offices, though no actual office work was done in them!  Mine was downstairs by the front door.  I insisted on this because my "office stuff" was much prettier to look at. :)  He got one of the spare bedrooms upstairs.  His office doubled as an over-flow guest room, but there was still plenty of room for all his computer paraphernalia.  Then, I got pregnant, and baby things started to migrate into my office- strollers & swings & car seats began to crowd all my pretty stuff.  Although it was pulling double-duty as a storage room for baby gear, it was still MY room.  Until somewhere around my 7.5 month of pregnancy when the hubs got a wild idea to re-arrange THREE rooms in our home one evening.  Though I was verbally able to protest, I could physically do nothing, and so I just had to roll with it.  And in one night the spare bed that was in babygirl's nursery moved into the hubs office (now the "hotel guest room" because of the two queen sized beds in there).  The hubs office gear moved into my office, and my daybed moved into babygirl's nursery.  It did make sense, but My Office was now Our Office.  And I'd have to look at all that computer equipment all the time.  Ugh.

After babygirl was born I began working from home so I could stay home with her.  My my office set-up just didn't really function as a good place for me to work and her to play.  So most days I toted my laptop around to wherever she was.  At breakfast & lunch my office was the kitchen table.  During playtime my office was the glider in her nursery.  During naps I took up residence on the coffee table.  And when I needed quiet time once the hubs got home, my office was on our bed.  It worked okay, but as she got older I really needed a place where both of us could settle in for longer stretches.  So we re-vamped Our Office once again.  Out with my desk & the hubs desk.  In with a spare changing table from the family room, all babygirl's toys and a loveseat from the master bedroom.  Add in a small side table scored at Goodwill, and we had a space for me to sit and rest my laptop and a space for babygirl to play til her heart's content.  Now we don't know what to call the room: The Playroom?  The Study?  Here is what it looks like now...

I'd be happier if the giant colorful plastic toys weren't part of the room's decor, but they make babygirl happy, so I can concede.  My bookshelves stayed, though the storage behind the doors is bursting at the seams.  This is on my list of challenges to overcome: better/more storage!  The bookshelves are Billy bookshelves from Ikea.  I covered another diaper box with cute wrapping paper (like I did in the closet of babygirl's nursery) to use as toy storage tucked away under the changing table.  A side note on the changing table, apart from the fact that it was dirt cheap at Ikea, we figure we'll be able to easily re-purpose it once we don't need a changing table anymore.  I can see it as a great little dry bar in our family room.  Or maybe some sort of art station for babygirl.  Seems pretty flexible though!

I'm itching to re-style the bookshelves, but I know it will be a whole afternoon project.  One of these days...

My comfy little space to sit back and observe the chaos!  The loveseat is a Craigslist find from years ago, but it's a Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams.  I just checked their website, and it doesn't look like they're making it any longer, but I know I've seen similar ones at big box stores.

The other corner of the room.  When I'm working I can pull the side table in front of the loveseat and it makes a perfect workspace.  Not too big, so can't do too much work.  LOL.  Oh, and a funny note about this corner, there are two pictures hanging on the wall over there.  A cross-stitch my grandad had done years ago hangs on the wall next to the window.  And that other picture up higher on the other wall, well that's the hubs ONE AND ONLY design contribution to our home: a framed picture of the Obama family he printed from the web.  No, I'm not kidding.  Ha!!

Another view.  The drapes are actually painter's drop cloths.  I washed them first so they have a great linen look, and then attached drapery clips from Ikea.  Super easy, super cheap, and they look super good!!

Close-up of the changing table, baby gear & toy box.   The art on the wall is also from Ikea years ago.  Gosh, never realized how much stuff we have from Ikea!!

And this, folks, is the scary reality of clearing out Our Office- the dining room is a disaster!!!  The desk chair and tons of office stuff has been "temporarily" housed on the table, going on a month now.  Eeek.  Got to get working on a better storage solution!!!