The Budoir

After over 4 years in the house I finally have our bedroom "done."  I put that in quotes because I'm sure I'll still tinker with things from time to time, but for the most part I think it's pretty good.  

Below is the MLS photo from the prior owners.  You know I don't mince words so I'm just gonna say (er, type) it:  I f**king hate everything about this room except the fact that it's 5 blocks from the beach.  From the baby poop brown walls to the Carmela Soprano curtains, this room haunted me.  I started to hate the entire house just because of this room.  The brown of the walls filled me with anger every single time I walked into the room.  

Finally, in December 2016 I had enough & in a fit trekked over to OSH, purchased 2 gallons of Benjamin Moore Sidewalk Gray and went to town.  I was thrilled with the result but in my haste I also left about a dozen little paint splotches on our already filthy ecru carpet.

With brings me to the carpet.  The prior owners had all of the bedrooms & the stairs carpeted just before listing the house.  They chose a light color in the hopes that it would make the rooms look larger and help the house to sell.  It definitely served that purpose but as soon as we moved in the carpets started to show wear and tear, especially in the path from the stairs, up the hallway, and out onto our patio (the walk we do to go up to the roof deck).

After 4+ years of complaining about the carpet we finally redid the floors!  I am so flippin' excited and now feel so happy when I'm in the house.  It's so soft and cushy compared to the old carpet and the dark blue-gray looks so much better. 

We got new bedroom furniture in January (I can't rave enough about the midcentury modern-looking furniture at Living Spaces) & a trip to IKEA last weekend got me the final pieces for the room- the art over the bed, blackout shades for the doors, & bookcase for my office area.

Having my office in the bedroom hasn't been as weird as I thought it would be.  Sure, it was the bomb.com to have a separate room all to myself, but giving that up was a small price to pay for Jason's arrival.  To be honest, I can barely remember what his nursery looked like as my office even though we only converted it last July.  And even though the separation from the rest of the house was really nice, I got pretty bad cellular reception & often had to take calls in the living room if I couldn't make calls with VOIP.  Plus there wasn't much natural light, which wore on me sometimes.  

From last July to about 3 months ago I had my office area in the cave downstairs but as Jason became more alert and NOISY, it became harder and harder for me to get work done and take calls down there.  I was worried that having my desk in the bedroom would made it look too much like a dorm room but I think I've made the best of the situation.  Printers and computer monitors are always going to look a bit ugly but it is what it is.  I supposed I could have ditched the white board but it's one of those things that I need to function.  For some reason seeing a task on the board & erasing it when it's done makes me super productive.  

This is what my office area looks like staged.

And this is what it actually looks like when I'm in the middle of working.  Ha!  In full disclosure, this is actually on the neat side.  There are some days where I feel like I'm drowning in paper but I wasn't drafting any legal docs today so I kept the clutter to a minimum.   The awesome thing about this desk is that it's a really sturdy standing desk (IKEA, like everything else I own!) that you can crank up or down.  It's done wonders for my back over the past few months & I highly recommend this one both for its minimalist style & cheap price point (sub $250).

Indulge me as I discover the wonders of the "markup" feature in iPhoto (or whatever Apple is calling their photo application these days).  I had way too much fun labeling my trinkets & things that make the days pass a little easier.  I have always been VERY particular about my office setup, even when it was in an actual office building, so it's been liberating to actually be able to do exactly what I want now.  I am my own office manager; [insert the names of various pain-in-the-ass office managers that I've butted heads with through the years] you are not the boss of me!  I am the decider!