a fully functional office.

As a precursor to this post, I need to admit something.

I'm OCD.  Sometimes it gets a little out of control.  Like stacking the cups in the kitchen.  If they aren't color-coordinated, I go a little crazy.  I just really like things to have a clear-cut spot where they're easy to find and easy to put away.

I told Tyler the other day that I think I'm the opposite of a hoarder.  If I haven't used it in the past 6 months, then that item is a goner.  It gets pretty bad at school too.  I hate clutter and even if I could probably use those extra plastic eggs and that skein of yarn we used for the pumpkin project, I usually choose to give it away or throw it away because I hate it just sitting there for another year.  Besides, I usually forget about those things anyways.

Which brings me to the state of the spare room in our house.  It's become a "catch all" for everything else in the house.  The coat closet, games, luggage, craft baskets, storage, exercise ball, etc.  Having that many things in one room was driving me bonkers!  And the fact that none of the office furniture matched was making me stay far away from actually doing anything productive in the office.

To see what our spare room looked like before I went to town on it, go here.

So I cleaned it.  It's taken 3 days to move things around, get a few new furniture pieces, and completely organize and dejunk documents, school supplies, and those "important" papers that always end up getting misplaced.  We took our old desk to D.I. along with the nasty file cabinet and loads of other "stuff" we felt like we could part with.

And so, without further ado, welcome to our new and improved office area!

It's nice to have some kind of cohesive color scheme to half of the office at least (the other side of the office holds my cedar chest and our large coat closet-also an IKEA find when we first got married).

IKEA is always our favorite place to shop.  We decided to bring my white desk (also from IKEA) from school back home.  I'll have more room for my big teacher desk with 10 less students next year.  Then we went and bought the skinny side bookshelf and wall shelf at IKEA.  Less than $40 for all of our office improvements!

The magazine boxes were $1 a piece at Target's Dollar Spot.  Along with the blue and green baskets.  Oh how I love Target.  These beauties hold the bigger books, notebooks, etc. that we want easy access too during the week.  And having a box for just school or church will be so nice while we're planning lessons in advance.  No more searching for that onefolderthathadeverythingformylessoninitandnowi'velostit.  

See my point?

We've done pretty well during our marriage keeping bills, documents, and taxes together in hanging file folders.  However, it was a system that was definitely not working as well as it should have been.  So it was time to come up with something else!  We decided to put things into file folders and organize them into clear plastic pouches so we could visually see what was in each section.  

No more digging through a hanging file or hurriedly forcing the gas bill into it's folder before rushing off to evening activities.

They even came out with file folders that have these neat-o pockets on the inside now!  Really helpful for those big ol' insurance books or health plans that are a pain to store.  Everything is nice and labeled inside the binders.  This was the biggest project of the whole room.  Going through all of the papers and deciding what could go and what could stay.  Now there's a place for everything!  

Hallelujah.

 I could really go on and on and show more and more pictures of organizing all of our stuff, but I decided to hold off.  I need to rein in my OCD a little.

We also FINALLY (over 3 years later!) filled out the forms needed for T to get his birth certificate and social security card. They were MIA at his parent's house when we got married (thank goodness he had his passport!) and we're finally getting around to having them for the future.

And now if you'll excuse me, I think I'll go enjoy our fully functional office now.