Last night after we got back from our busy day in town, I found the final piece of my Christmas had arrived.  It was something I got for organizing my craft stuff near my desk.  At the old house, I had the desk up against the big bay window, and I used all that window as extra storage space.  I don't have that here, so I was having a little trouble getting everything organized in a usable fashion.  The solution was to get two items I had been eyeing for a little while with my Christmas money.  So I finished up the space last night, and wala!

After

Before

You may or may not have noticed when I took the photos of our bedroom, that there was one side that wasn't photographed.  That's because it is completely open to what was designated as an office space.  I almost immediately new that this is where I wanted all my good books and my desk.  I have a clear sight line down the hall toward the rest of the house, but it's outside of the of the main bustle of the rest of the house, so I can have quiet to think.  These windows also look across the bulk of the backyard, so it's a good place to watch the kids from while I work.  I don't have as good of a view of the backyard from anywhere but the back porch.











The one challenge with this room, was that I needed to be able to find a way to differentiate the space from our bedroom area.  I finally settled on painting it differently.  We were using lots of red in accent colors in our room, mostly pulling from a blanket that Gary really liked that we use on the bed. So, we looked at the two reds in the paint book we had.  We felt like going dark, would work in the space due to the large windows, and the white trim looks amazing against it.  I was going for a slightly more muted rustic red, but apparently we got the other red from the page mixed.  I like it, even though it wasn't quite what I was shooting for.














My big pretty bookcases covers most of the space on the one wall without windows.  Since we added the 6 white bookcases around the house.  I went through my books.  I gave some of my childhood favorites to the kids.  Britt got the least, he ended up with all my Matt Christopher sports books.  I gave Ruth all of the American Girl series, she has really enjoyed them.  Rebecca got all the horse books and my Beverly Cleary books - because if there is anyone out there like Ramona it's Rebecca.  Having one of the white bookshelves in our bedroom for some of our more fun reading books, gave me more room on my nice shelves for more churchy books from Granddaddy, and it also gave me an empty shelf to place all of Abigail's things.  And of course all my literature and history books are near the bottom of that shelf still. Her glass angel was broke in the move, but everything else is on the shelf.  The white furniture also looks really good in the space I think.  When I was painting everything else white, I also painted our little filing cabinet/printer stand to match.  The rolling organizer in the corner is one of the new pieces I got with my Christmas money, it holds alot of washi and still has plenty of room for my scrapbooking paper and the like.  The little mint/pale teal caddy is another piece I have wanted for a few years, that I got with Christmas money.  It currently holds all of my stickers, mailing supplies, and misc desk items that I need.














It's a great space for my planning, for doing bills, and lesson planning.  In the evenings if I'm still working when Gary is ready to watch tv, or relax, I can hang out with him while I work.  And since the tv pivots on an angle from the wall, sometimes I watch tv more than work.