My Study - The 'Before' Pictures

This Easter break, I decided that I would tackle my study... I just love a new organising project!  This post will show you the 'before photos', and I will post the 'after' shots, as I work my way through the room.

Photo #1 - this is looking in from the doorway - it doesn't look so bad, huh?

Nice, big Ikea desk.  Two beautiful Ikea filing cabinets (assembled using the BESTA range), each with two rows of hanging suspension file capabilities. 

Photo # 2 - A close-up of what is on top of the filing cabinets:

My gorgeous Morgan and Finch storage boxes, which keep lots of goodies such as stationery, bills, printable templates, etc in a somewhat organised fashion.  I never did get around to labelling those...

Photo #3 - The great BESTA bookshelf:

LOVE the red and white boxes, they are a great system that work beautifully for me - this is definitely something that you will be seeing again!  The rest is seriously in need of some work...

Photo #4 - The shameful built-in cupboard:

No comment - the mess says it all :(

Photo #5 - The printing station:

This is a small coffee table that is in the far back corner of the room, behind the desk.  Look at the cords!!

Photo #6 - The business filing station:

As you can see, my husband has a very 'sophistocated' system for filing his business records!

Photo #7 - The random junk station:

Again, no comment needed.

I am sure you will all agree that this room is in desperate need of a make-over... and that maroon wall HAS to go!  It was like that when we moved in - it really makes the room feel so much smaller and darker than it actually is.  The other thing about this room that really annoys me is that it is right beside our carport.  So, the natural light is blocked by the outside roof, plus when you look outside, you see cars, the boat, maybe a mower, the bins, etc.  This is something I am trying to concoct a great visually appealing solution for!

What seemed like a fabulous idea on a bright, sunny Saturday morning (while the hubs slept peacefully until around lunchtime!), soon turned into that overwhelming feeling of 'Oh my!  What have I done??'  I had strategically sorted boxes, piles, folders and 'stuff' into categories that overflowed out of the room, and I was all of a sudden wondering how the heck I was going to be able to re-store order from all of this chaos!

But I re-assured myself that I could do this, thinking of all of the amazing make-overs I have seen from bloggers I follow.  And I reminded myself of my father-in-law's favourite saying - Rome wasn't built in a day!  This mess didn't happen overnight, so a solution is certainly not going to magically evolve overnight either.  Slow and steady is what is needed here.

As with any organising project, I started by pulling out everything - everything out of cupboards, shelves, drawers...  When Mick emerged from the bedroom, he just stared at me and gave me the 'look'.  He could hardly walk down the hallway due to the fact that it was as if my study had just vomited all over the hallway floor! In his heart he also knew that this also meant work for him (by the way of Ikea furniture, which I am envisaging will help solve my storage issues, along with all of the other great ideas I am sure to get along that way - that I need him to help with!).

I talked about my plans with him (I think he listened), making sure that what I was planning would 'maximise the available space' ~ that is the key to any organising project I do.  While he was very supportive (by nodding his head when he thought he should), I do think that I gave him a slight heart attack when I said that I wanted to switch the furniture in there from brown to white.  I won't write what he actually said - just get the gist that he was not impressed!  Well, I guess I can understand that the last make-over wasn't cheap, when we bought the brown furniture, and now I want white - oops!  But it is all about making the space functional, and white will really open up the room, and make a bright, cheery place to work ;)

So, we embark on a new project, which is sure to take some time to turn into something beautiful and functional... I look forward to sharing the journey with you :)


Read more about our Study Makeover here.