My Home Office - The Built-in Desk~

Ever since we moved into the house 2 1/2 years ago, I have wanted to turn this strange closet in our library into a useful built-in desk. Well, as you may remember, our house is on the market, and since not everyone wants a built-in desk, we had to modify our original plan just a bit.


As I showed you in the slideshow yesterday, after removing the doors to the closet, we finished the interior and the Hubby built a shelf. We had planned on building the desk portion as well, but opted instead to use a fabulous $10 yard sale table that we found a couple of years back which just happens to fit perfectly in the closet. (Yes, that was just good fortune!)

I skirted the bottom to hide all my computer paraphenalia, because as you can see in the pictures, my computer is ancient-of-days and is about to wheeze it's last wheeze. But it still does the job, so I can't complain (or replace it just yet.)

To make the space my own, I added my pretty pinboards, a few of our vintage cameras (turns out HUGE computer monitors make good display shelves), some cute white baskets with little chalkboard tags, and bits of this and that to make me smile. If we were planning on staying in the house, I would add a permanent light fixture of some sort, but for now, the light clip does the trick - even if the cord is a little unsightly.

Some of you may know that I work from home as a part-time editorial assistant , so between that and blogging, I spend a lot of hours sitting in front of the computer. Now it makes me smile everytime I sit down. And the moral of this story is...persistence definitely pays off!

Just love my vintage printing block "H" and my cute damask stamp (found in the Dollar Spot at Tar-jay!)

I love the texture of the folded book, the twine and the starfish on linen. mmmmmmm.

I love this vignette...a photo of me and the l'il sis, a rubberband ball that the kiddos helped me make out of rubberbands my mother sent home with us this summer, and the hubby's birthday pixie.

A few of our vintage cameras.

And the winner of the Single Stone Studios $40 gift certificate is Mary Ellen (Megardengal) from Mary's Meanderings. Congratulations! Drop me an email and we'll get you set up!

Have a great day~

Frugal Friday - the built-in desk~

I've had a project on our to-do list since we moved into the house 2 1/2 years ago. And today it finally got finished. I took some pictures, but the lighting was not very good...so I'm going to take better ones tomorrow. In the meantime, here's a little slideshow of the process...starring... The Hubby (yes, he did all the hard work except the paint job...thanks sweetie!!) I'm posting a couple of little teaser photos of the finished product as well...hopefully they'll make you want to come back.

Edited to add: I've had a couple of comments about the slide show...it does end at slide 10...for anyone who wants to know. (leaves you hangin' huh?) ;-)

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Why, you may ask, is this project featured on Frugal Friday? The only things we purchased to finish this were 2 sheets of drywall. Grand total...less than $20.

Teaser photos ...

Come back tomorrow to see the finished project and find out the winner of the Single Stone Studios giveaway!

Have a great Friday night!

A Thankful Tree and A Project Teaser~

Thanksgiving is one of my very favorite holidays. And I feel like it is often overlooked. I want my children to know the meaning behind the turkey and mashed potatoes. I want them to celebrate with a grateful heart. So today I wanted to share with you all a fun tradition that puts the focus on gratitude....the Thankful Tree.

Our family takes an evening at the beginning of the month of November to talk about what it means to be thankful. Then we write some of the things we are grateful for on leaves cut from cardstock and hang them from a "tree" made of branches collected in our backyard. (These pics are from last year, however, since our house is in the staged-to-sell mode.)

Just thought I'd share with you a couple of the things my little ones are thankful for...


Oh, yes, Mr. Two and Mr. Three are very grateful for Spongebob (and, to be honest, during the "witching" hour around dinner time, I am very grateful for Spongebob as well!)

Mr. One is grateful for hot cocoa on snowy days. And yes, I must admit, that is one thing I am very grateful for as well. Well, as long as I'm being honest, I'm grateful for hot chocolate pretty much any day. ;-)




And because I promised a project teaser...here's a photo of the "lovely" closet in our library. Any guesses what this is going to become? Hint: my pretty new pinboards will find a home here. I'll show you all next week.



Don't forget, tomorrow is the Frugal Friday Linky Party here at the Shabby Nest. For all of you night owls, MckLinky will go up tonight at 12:01 am EST. Can't wait to see what you all have up your sleeves this time!



Have a great Thursday~

Why I love to Blog~

With a title like that, this post could be book-length. But today I just want to share one of the reasons I love blogging so much. And that is....inspiring my readers to beautify their homes!

Last week I got an email from one of my readers...Tiffany at Happy Day. She thanked me for my blog and for inspiring her to personalize her home. She shared me with me a post that she was working on, because it was inspired by my mini-mudroom.

This is my mini-mudroom. If you haven't had a chance to read about it, here's the link.

Tiffany had this "architectural feature" in her home that she just couldn't decide what to do with.

Until one day, when she hit upon the idea of using the idea she saw here to create her own mini-mudroom.

How fabulous is this???

I was so excited when I saw what she had done, I emailed her right back to ask if I could share it with my readers. There is nothing more gratifying than knowing that someone has been inspired to create something wonderful by one of my posts. Thanks for sharing this with me Tiffany!

If you'd like to see Tiffany's entire post, here's the link!

Have a great Wednesday~