Monday, January 21, 2008 | by nathan

Projects: Writing Space

Dude, I’m on FIRE with the house projects lately. There was the organizing of the bedroom, then the new dishwasher, and now, I’ve finally, after two and a half years of living in this house, finally transformed my office into a real space for writing AND a place for Sam to live.

Here’s what the office looked like when we moved in, circa October 2005:

Bad, right? At any rate, not good. That yellow color bothered me from the moment we first saw the house, but I never could decide on a color with which to replace it. Finally, I realized that - oh my GOD - if I painted it, and hated it, I COULD CHANGE IT. I know - this is a revolutionary concept, and I’ll give your mind a moment to catch up.

So, since I had 3 days off this weekend and the dishwasher situation resolved itself by Saturday night, I decided to get started:

I picked out a color called Iris Moon, which is a pale lavender shade. It’ll go perfectly with the dark brown and black furniture I have in here and the black gallery frames I plan on using to hang photographs. I did the lion’s share of the work alone, though I had to have a lot of help from Brian with things near the ceiling, because I’m freaking short and can’t reach the ceiling, even when I stand on a chair. The fact is, I really enjoyed most of this work; I put on a playlist I created titled "Occasionally Terrible Music To Sing Along To" - which is exactly what it sounds like - and went to town, singing at the top of my lungs.

Though I have to say, today was much harder than yesterday, even though there was less painting involved. Today was the day I took down all the books from my shelves, moved them away from the wall, and painted behind where they’d been. Then, I rearranged all the furniture, eliminating some of it, as the room had become ridiculously crowded, and put the books back up and everything back in its place.

It was fun, but I’m okay if I NEVER HAVE TO DO IT AGAIN. Anyway, now if you come visit me there’s room to fold out the couch, and Sam has a little more space to kick around in while I’m gone all day. I’m going to take down the ceiling fan and replace it with this light fixture I ordered from Ikea, chosen in part because it was the only one I could find that they’d ship to me, and I knew if I waited until my next trip to Dallas, the light may never get replaced.

Anyway, enough talk. What do you think of my new office/writing space/library/dog’s room?