House Tour-Home Office

This part of my House Tour is my Home Office. Though I have to tell you, it is NOT just a home office. It is a home office, craft room, tv room, mudroom, pantry and main family entry. Oh, and it gets better--it's only 7' wide. One 'issue' with a farmhouse, at least the way we made it, is that is has to be symetrical. Our house has a center and then even sides and 2 stories so 4 'boxes' exactly the same size where all the rooms fit. So if I wanted one room to be bigger, I had to widen all 4 sections. Basically, to finish this long explanation, this 'room' ended up crammed! I was rather distraught with this space as I dreamed of a huge workroom with a work island in the center but knew that it was the only 'make sense' option when I finalized the plans. I spent a lot of time while designing this space to keep it open while maximizing the storage and ensuring that every inch was used wisely. I don't think you will feel like this space has too much in it but you will notice that every inch of these walls has something built into it or something on it!

Because it is a long alley of a room, it is very hard to photograph so I will do my best!

Here is my desk which is what you see from the entry while looking through the dining room. These cabinets hold TONS! The upper cabinets are deep in order to fit drawer systems and the open display helps prevent this area from looking like a big wall of cabinets. I am a big binder girl so I love my binders being out and available at any moment. I had a plug planned for this cabinet and in the basket by my binder is all our chargers--just put in your ipod or phone and it's not out on a counter!

This area is to the right of the desk. I had fun designing this wall because it was a big challenge--the window and small area had me stumped for a while! The window seat is something I drew with my carpenter and then had him cut it and nail it and I did the rest. It has storage underneath and holds things that I don't need often but want available. The craft cabinet has lots of scrapbooking items as well as a drawer that holds this year's school work that the kids bring home that I want to keep.

Here is a view of this area from the other end of the room. You can see that across from the cabinets is a built in area that keeps ALL my craft items!

The skirt hides boring storage and hides glue sticks and other functional craft tools, scrapbook work in progress, page supplies and pending scrapbook work. Above the cabinet is my jar heaven. I blogged about this before but to keep this together for the House Tour, I'll repeat a bit! The jars don't need much explanation--any craft item I have is here. I use my ribbon weekly and love that jar! The magazine bins at the very top hold things that I call 'resources'--things that I want just in case like scrapbook magazines or catalogs for future inspiration, catalogs that I don't plan to shop from right now but want for possible future shopping, kids yearbooks, volunteer reference items that I have to hold onto, every packet of school pictures where you use 5 of them and don't know what to do with the rest, etc.

Sitting to the left of the cabinets in a fun spinning system that holds all my scrapbook embellishments and above that is where I keep my often looked at catalogs along with things I need by the door--coupons, gift cards and items I need to take somewhere such as deposits.

The pantry is pretty simple--great storage. I had an outlet put inside so my roomba is always charging and my pencil sharpener is always plugged in too, but I don't have to see it.

Here is a view from the pantry and mudroom end. The door, which is our side entrance, is in between the craft/office space and the pantry/mudroom space. At the end of this long room is our half bathroom. You can see that the side of the pantry is where I keep my calendar system. I use Outlook and print my calendar every few weeks for my family to view. That way my husband can't say he didn't know because I can then point out that the calendar is right by the door!

This mudroom area is right across from the pantry. Shoes go under the bench, and the left basket has my younger son's sports items and the right basket has things that need to go out of the house like umbrellas, sports glasses and anything that we need to take somewhere or that just belongs in our cars! The bins above have storage for things we need randomly like scouting items, cooler bag for long games, sports items, etc. The boxes above hold photos from my pre-digital days.

This space is maxed out in storage even though it is not a big room. I hope it shows you that you can get function out of any space with the right planning!