Home Tour Tuesday - My Home Office

The wait is over!  I finally got that kick in the pants that I needed and I finished my office... well, at least enough to photograph it for the home tour.  There are still a few things that need to be done, namely filling the rest of the frames in my gallery wall, but pretty much everything else is ready.  And you have no idea how much I’m dying inside posting this with unfinished business, but if I waited until I filled those frames, it would be months as I’m trying to fill them with pieces of original art by yours truly.  That takes a lot of time, and considering all of my free time now goes to blogging, there’s not much time for art.

As I have stated several times in the past, this room is the exact opposite of minimalistic, so if clutter scares you, you should probably go ahead and avert your eyes.  I have an obscene amount of wall décor, trinkets, and, well, things in my office.  I love pretty things and my walls are covered with all of the pretty things that I love.  My office is the place where I house all of my favorite material possessions and it’s actually kind of like a museum.  I’m an extremely sentimental person, so I have tons of keepsakes from the last 34 years of my life and they’re all stored in this very room.  And since I like to be able to enjoy my keepsakes (instead of just boxing them up), I wanted a room where they could be easily accessed for when those moments of nostalgia hit.  As a matter of fact, my office is quite similar to Ariel’s secret room under the sea, but instead of hoarding all of the things that belong to others, I hoard my own stuff.  Haha. 

I also have a lot of hobbies – blogging (obviously), photography, scrapbooking (which I hardly do anymore), painting, headband making, and a plethora of other crafty things, and those hobbies also require a lot of stuff – paint brushes, paint, stickers, paper, hole punchers, scissors, glue guns, etc.  I often see pictures of other bloggers’ offices and I’m like, “Where’s all their stuff?!”  How can you function with only a computer, a bouquet of flowers, and a cup of coffee??  Where’s your stapler, your cup of pens, your paperclips, and your printer?!  I mean, hello, do people just not own printers anymore?!  If so, where the heck are they?!  Because I have yet to see a desk of a blogger hold a printer.  Maybe I’m just high maintenance?  Ok, let's don't go there.

Anywho, most of you who have been reading for a while also know that I’m an organization freak, so while there is a lot going on in this room, every single bit of it is labeled and organized to the max.  I assure you.  I can find anything that I need in about three seconds flat.

Now that my disclaimer is out of the way, without further ado, I present to you my favorite room in our entire house!  Come on in!  

The very first thing that you see when you walk in is my gallery wall of photos of some of my favorite people – Brian, the babies, my parents, my bros, and my girlfriends.  Some of my favorite pictures with my favorite peeps!

In the very center of the room is my crafting table.  It houses all of my crafting tools. 

The front left cubbies hold all of my project boxes.  I usually have about 8 billion projects going on at any given time, so it’s nice to have them housed in 12x12 boxes so they’re not all laying around everywhere and cluttering up the room.  As you can see, I have eight boxes, and all eight are currently being used.  I’m a busy, busy lady!  When I hear someone say they’re bored I’m like, “What?!”  I think if I had nothing but free time for the next 50 years, I could easily keep myself entertained.

The front right drawers contain all of my art supplies – markers, paint, glue, fabric, etc.

On top of the table, I keep my Silhouette Cameo and an organizer to store all of my frequently used crafting tools – paint brushes, scissors, ruler, glue dots, etc. as well as a few pretties to liven up the room.

On the back side of the table I keep my scrapbooking supplies – the left side has trays for all of my scrapbook paper (yes, they are all categorized) and the right side has drawers that hold all of my embellishments as well as a container for all of my duplicate pictures and enlargements that I’ve developed through the years.

On the wall by the closet hangs my favorite piece of art in the room – the very first oil painting that I ever did.  I was just five years old.  See the date that my Daddy helped me scratch into the bottom right corner?

It also holds the logo that I made for myself when I started my blog.  You can see that tutorial here.

My dream office has always consisted of wall to wall bookshelves on one wall.  I love to read, scrapbook, journal, etc. so I have a lot of books.  A couple of years ago I bought the Billy Bookcases from Ikea and they made all of my dreams come true!

The left bookcase holds all of my books, a few old childrens’ books that were mine, and a few keepsake magazines that I’m hanging onto.  Aren't books just so darn pretty?  I just can't bring myself to use a Kindle.

The two middle bookcases are dedicated to keepsakes – old diaries, scrapbooks, home videos, photo albums, and my CD collection is hiding behind those white shelf covers (tutorial here).  I also have a shelf for keepsakes from Jacob’s and Olivia’s newborn days, and I have a shelf for all of our wedding albums.

The right bookcase is for miscellaneous stuff that includes all of my planner supplies – stickers, sticky notes, special pens, stamps, etc.

The chest under the window houses our remaining wedding memorabilia – I told y’all that I save a lot of stuff!

I made the black and white curtains, and you can see that tutorial here.

To the right of the window, I have a station where I keep all of my office supplies – printer paper, tape, glue, extra notebooks, stationary, hanging folders, etc.

Above that station is a timeline gallery wall that I created about my adult life.  You can see more shots and explanations of each of the items here.

The last wall in the room holds my desk and file cabinet.  This desk is where I do all of my blogging, bill-paying, etc. and the file cabinet holds old bills, medical info, and “life paperwork” as I like to call it.  Eventually I would like to get rid of that thing and go totally paperless, but that will be a big job, and I don’t see it happening any time soon.  I actually acquired the file cabinet from work.  They were getting rid of some older furniture so I snagged one as quickly as I could!  The only problem was that it was pretty ugly and scratched up, so I bought some gold polka dot contact paper from Hobby Lobby and now it looks fabulous!  

The bulletin board above my desk is used to hold all of my current inspiration as well as some practical lists and keepsakes.  I made the board a few months back and you can see that tutorial here.  The gallery wall above the file cabinet is the unfinished portion of the room.  As you can see, several of the frames are still empty.  I really need to get on that!

Well, I hope you enjoyed my tour, and just so you can see what I have to put up with when taking my pictures, here’s a picture of my littlest photo-bomber… she always wants to be under Mommy’s feet!

I hope you enjoyed the tour!  We’re actually nearing the end of my Home Tour Tuesday series as I only have two more segments planned.  I’m hoping to be back next week to share our outdoor living space, and then I’m going to be doing a fun “how the house actually looks” post just so y’all will know that I’m not some crazy do-it-all keep-the-house-spotless mom!  Enjoy your Tuesday!

Front Sitting Room 

Formal Dining Room 

Living Room 

Kitchen 

Guest Bath

Playroom

Master Bedroom

Jacob's Room
Olivia's Room
Kids' Bathroom

*Linking up with Our Pretty Little Girls for Tuesday Talk and Stang & Co. and Crown Me in Glitter for Talk About It Tuesday.