Desk in a closet = Love

So, the construction that was supposed to happen on this site, didn’t. There is an issue with some themes I was working on and my hosting service and I was working them out, but I just couldn’t finish the work in a day. I’m not a theme god. So, I’m just leaving it be until I have more time on my hands.

Sitting around the house all day without a job is not boring … I fill my many free hours on the couch watching Secret Life of the American Teenager. Actually, I just started watching it 2 days ago. It got 4+ stars on netflix, and there are 73 episodes, so I figured it would keep me busy for awhile. I’m on episode 23 now.

We are renovating our loft space, or moreso – REPURPOSING – our loft space.

Here is the before:

I have to admit, I love simple and symmetrical. That’s how the room was before as shown above. Bed in the middle, and a desk on either side.

The ‘new plan’ is to put 2 old Ik.ea shelving units we  have, up on either side of the window for storage.  And utilize the closets to the left and the right of where the bed is, as office spaces.

We took the doors off, and each get to decorate one. TH chose a deep cobalt blue which looks pretty awesome. And I’m going girly… I was thinking pink with white lace decor, but am opting for a black and white motif – more white than black.

We had planned to custom build desks to fit in the closets b/c the width of the door frame is less than 5 feet. Yet when you go INSIDE the closet, the width is nearly 10 feet. The depth is only about 26 inches and most desks are too deep for us to just pop into this closet. We were going to go cheap, get a piece of wood, cut it down or piece it together and put legs on it. Our budget was around $150/desk to get all the pieces we needed, stain and tools. Wasn’t too sure we could do it on that budget and with the help of my dad. We weren’t sure if it would be labor intensive or what… But then, Ik.ea came to the rescue!

We wound up buying 2 of these. 1 in black (for TH) and 1 in white (for moi). The price is SOOOO RIGHT!

The desk is about 6.5 feet wide, which is perfect! Leaving us plenty of room on the interior of the closet for future storage.

Right now our loft is A MESS, and it’s a work in progress. But here’s what TH completed so far

I love how it looks, honestly, b/c we have so much more Free Open space in the room now. And we each have our own little private office spaces. We have lots to add to the closets, like shelving and filing cabinets and also decor for the back walls. We plan on getting wall mounts for our monitors to open up some of the desk space and adding in some nice mirroring to the back walls so we don’t feel like we are staring out at a wall alllll day.

The shelving in the 2nd part of the after pic is from our old entertainment center. We have to put the shelves back in and I want to paint them white and use colored basket storage in the cubbies.

The closet/offices will also have tension rods going across and flow-y white curtains to hide everything that’s inside. And the rest of the area (where the old guest bed was in 1st pic) will be used as the kids play area.

Then where the old desks were (in 1st pic) — will be used as a 2nd den area. We will be buying new couches — some day — and hanging one of our tv’s on the wall … also all the things like the baby swing, and play mat etc will be used up here.

I want to keep all this stuff up in the loft, b/c it’s out of the way, and it’s not something ppl will see just walking into our house … and the main den area (living room) will be a bit more formal some day too.

It’s not easy repurposing rooms. We were kinda sad when we had to repaint the library into a nursery, but we are loving it now. The house has a different feel to it.

Lots of little projects to work on and we are trying to figure out the most budget friendly ways to do things. Ik.ea is a blessing thusfar.