Project: Office Relocation – Part One

The projects continue around our house. They are equally exciting and exhausting. I really do love the opportunity to get things organized. It’s amazing to find what things we have shoved in drawers or in the back of closets that we have no reason to keep. I think our trash man might start to hate us. We have had several garbage days with abnormally large piles waiting for him. And we’ve only lived here a few years… it doesn’t seem possible to have accumulated so much junk already!

Our home office used to be located in one of our spare bedrooms. Although it was working out as a nice setup, we now want to be able to use that space as a bedroom for when we become foster parents. So, we decided that the best place for our new office space is in our master bedroom. Our bedroom is pretty big so there is plenty of space for our desks, it’s working out quite nicely.

Step one involved choosing a paint color for the bedroom. I guess this wasn’t actually a necessary step, but it seemed like a good time to go ahead a paint.

Paint choices

Since we had to rearrange our furniture layout in order to accommodate the desks, it was now or never. There is now way we would have wanted to move out even more furniture to paint in the future. Now that its done I’m glad we did the painting, but it sure was a lot of work! I moved all the small items out of the room to make for a very cluttered hallway.

Cluttered hallways

Then I used lots of sheets and blankets to cover up our big pieces of furniture. I love our bedroom furniture! There was no way I was taking chances with getting paint on anything, every little part was well covered.

Ready to paint

Our room was extra tricky to paint because it has vaulted ceilings. We had to borrow a taller ladder to reach the top of one wall. Kinda tricky to concentrate on painting when you’re that high off the ground. Once I got the first, big wall done I knew I liked the color I chose. It’s definitely dark enough that you notice the color without it being too dark and feeling like a cave. I really thought hard about the color, especially since we now spend so much of our time in here.

First wall done

I had been planning on doing all of the painting myself. I finished with all the priming in one day. That night I was so sore and worn out, I knew there was no way I could paint again the next day. Jesse was so excited to move the computers in that he wasn’t willing to wait the extra recovery day so he decided to do the paint coat himself. It’s just as well, he did a very nice job.

Me paintingJesse painting

While he painted the top coat, I worked on painting all the outlet covers. Those are always fun to paint. Plus it makes such a huge difference to have them matching the walls in the finished room.

Painted outlet covers

Check back soon for Office Relocation – Part Two, pictures of our finished office spaces…

Project: Lockup

Our household is deep into project mode these days. Almost every room is a disaster zone. It seems as though getting organized is requiring me to move EVERY single item we own. Some of our things are moving rooms, others are just being re-stacked to look neater. We’ve been working very hard, and I’m pleased with our progress so far.

Our first project was one that we had been meaning to do ever since we moved in… install closet shelving! We have this little closet under our stairway. It only has a half door so it’s kinda tricky to get some things in there, even though it has lots of space once you are inside.

Closet doorEmpty closet

One of the rules that we have to comply with for licensing is that all medications and household cleaning supplies have to be locked up. All of our CF friends can understand the difficulty of locking up all medications. We had them stashed everywhere they could fit – kitchen cabinets, entertainment center drawer, basket in the end table, upstairs hall closet. Now everything is in one location! It’s kind of a good thing that we never got around to this project sooner because we were able to arrange the shelves in a perfect pattern for this specific purpose.

MedicationsMedical bins

When the licensing agent came to our house for our first home study she said she would be bringing us a small lock box to hold our medications. I tried explaining to her that because Jesse has CF, that would not work since there is so much to store. I don’t think she understood because she said she would still bring it for us anyway. I did explain the closet plan before we did it and she said that would be fine too. The hardest part about keeping medications locked up is that Jesse isn’t even allowed to keep his enzymes out on the table. He’ll have to get used to making sure that not seeing them doesn’t make him forget to take them at every meal.

I drew out how I wanted the shelves to be and Jesse put them in to match the drawing. Didn’t he do a great job?!

Jesse installing shelvesJesse in actionShelf supportsFinished shelves

Then I got to fill my new shelves. The priority was to make sure that cleaning supplies from all the bathrooms and from under the kitchen sink were relocated. Then I needed to make sure that all our medical supplies could stay organized and easy to find. And… there was even leftover space for an extended pantry.

Full closetPrivate pharmacyMedical storageExtra pantry space

When I was finished stocking the closet I just had to sit and stare at how wonderfully organized everything is. Love it! Of course the final step will be to change out the closet door knob with one that has a lock, but for now we are just getting used to everything being kept in there.