Organizing my "Office"

Last month, I shared how I was able to update our main living-room/bed-room/office to include a functional work area using my childhood desk.

This was working much better than what I had before, but the organzer in me wanted to go a step further. Since I am using the desk drawers as dresser replacement and the space behind the door as storage for diapers, I didn´t really have a lot of space to put away paper-work, office supplies, and cables.

So on Sunday while over at my parent´s house, I remembered a little desk-top organizer with drawers, which I had purchased at Ikea about 15 years ago or so.

You have probably seen these before. However, I am not sure though whether they are still being sold at stores.

Once I cleaned out the drawers (there was my make-up from 15 years ago in some of those drawers - yuck!!!) I got crafty.

I made a template and then cut out 4 copies of the template on pretty paper.

Late Night Project - So I have bad pictures again.

Next, I attached my cut-to-size paper to the drawers using spray adhesive.

Within half an hour of work, I was able to put my newly decorated drawers in place and to start re-organizing my desk.

See, now I have a space for my notebook cable, the cell phone adapter and a few other cables I use frequently. This is perfect spot for keeping them out of sight, but easily reachable.

I made simple lables for each drawer and put them into the designated slots.

What I like about the drawer organizer  is, that it gives me storage space on two levels. One to hide stuff and one to show off stuff. Perfect.

Now, I would love to paint it white but that will have to be for another month, since paint is not in the budget. Same goes for the desk by the way. Plus, I am not going to attempt painting furniture for the moment, since we have a beautiful -14 C outside (6.8 F). No way I am going to paint furniture with such pretty temperatures, lol.

As for the budget, this project cost me nothing. The drawer unit was mine from many years ago, I already had the scrapbook-paper and I also already had the glue.


Linked up here:

- Before and After Party
- Tuesday´s Treasures

My tiny home office and craft space

 As I have mentioned before, we are still in a temporary living arrangment sporting all of 1 room to house our master, my son´s room, living room and office. That´s a lot of functions for a small space.

Besides that we have a small kitchen and bathroom. Today´s post will show a little more of how I organized my home office and crafting area. 

Here it is. The desk is my childhood desk, which I got from my parent´s basement. It still needs some work but I´ll get to that in time.

I  have that green Ikea storage box, which houses all our dearest pictures (the ones that made the cut to be brought to Germany on our international move). The blue magazine organizer holds all of the stuff that needs to be worked on or filed.

For now, we don´t have too much paperwork, so this is sufficient. Once we add to our collection of files I will return to using the same system I got used in the US.

On the other side, I put one of the decorative frames which I created last fall and jute-wrapped letter.

Behind the notebook, I placed a small blue basket from the Euro-Store. We use this to hold wallets, and odds and ends that tend to accumulate on a desk. I also place pencils and something to write on in this little basket.

The slim wardrobe to the left of our desk used to be part my parent´s entry way furniture. As they no longer needed it, they gave it to me to house part of our clothes. Until me move to a bigger place, this serves it´s purpose with a little bit of organization.

The top shelves are all reserved for our clothes, but the bottom two shelves are used as “filing cabinet”.

As you can see, I placed envelopes, my cookbook-binder, my scrap-book-paper, a box with an assortment of cables, DVDs, and two expandable organizing folders in these two shelves.

It´s amazing that this is pretty much all the paperwork we had to bring with us from the USA. And it sure is great not to need a lot of space for all of this.

The cabinet can be looked with a key, which I store on top of it. That way, my son won´t try to make a mess in there.

As for the desk´s drawers: Those house my son´s scarves, hats and gloves …

… my son´s socks ….

… and my socks:

As you can see, I use all black socks. That makes sorting much easier and whenever there are a few socks I had to sort out because of wear and tear, I can go to H&M and get a new pack for only very little money.

Finally, the door of the desk doesn´t house more files or anything like that, but rather my son´s diapering supplies and when not in use the notebook-adapter.

I decided on switching portions of the wardrobe and desk functions with the purpose of making this space as kid-friendly as possible.

There is not much, my son can do to drawers full of socks other than make a mess. With paperwork, that is a completely different story, Therefore I decided to assign some of the lockable wardrobe space as office shelving.

As for the crafting: Any project can be completed at the desk. Most of my supplies I stored in a sealable small container that is hidden away from toddler view. Since we don´t have a lot of space available, I only allowed myself to have that box worth of supplies. That way I can prevent that things get to crowded in here.

So there you have it. An introduction on our tiny yet functional office and craft space. Maybe it will give some of you ideas on what to do with your own tiny spaces.

Linked up here:
- Thrifty Decor Chick - Office and Craft Space Party