Home Makeover, Office Edition

Like I told you before, we decided to do a bit of rearranging in the office. We removed the work computer (currently on its way to Ralph and Chris's house) and big white corner desk (currently in pieces in our garage) and cleaned out and pitched and organized. We have gone through our entire file cabinet, shredded three garbage bags full of old papers, and rearranged the files to make sense. We also moved the silver table into the master bedroom to be my dressing table, which fits the scale of the room much better than my dinky dressing table did. We put the dressing table in the guest room which looks much better.

So here is the office during the process. I forgot to take before pics-- you can look at the house blog for those. At this point we had moved the brown desk from the left wall to the right wall, so it's about half way through the process.

And... AFTER! We put the bed together, sturdied it up with some extra 1 by 4's, and added a $17 air mattress from Walmart. We moved the file cabinet over to the right far corner, making that area a real office area. The room looks just charming and we love it!

I got the idea to make an Africa wall in honor of our trip there. However, being dually unemployed, there is no disposable income for printing out pictures. So we went to triple-A and asked for some brochures. We got plenty of great pictures of animals to fill frames we had in storage. I filled in the frames and arranged them all in a big rectangle with Brad's walking stick above it. He bought the stick in a Masai village and we're amazed it made it home in one piece. The whole thing looks really cool, if you ask me. And it was fun! I got to get all Martha-y on it and hang things perfectly. And even use fractions and stuff.

Here's a close-up of the wall. Click on the pic to see the pictures better.


In the cleaning out-- we also emptied and reorganized the closet-- I ended up with a few boxes to go through. One is our wedding box-- extra invitations, my veil, etc. I'm working on a shadow box for that which I'll hang next to my dressing table.

Also, on Monday night I just felt nudged to go help out with vacation Bible school at our new church. We got there about midway through as Brad was at his client all day, and we were greeted warmly and excitedly! The people we've met are just nice, genuine folks and we left feeling really blessed. And also exhausted. We've been used to being each other's only friend and only source of attention. Since we're the new folks at church, everyone says hi, introduces themselves, tells us their story, etc. Which is great, sincerely. It's just a lot! But after a day off yesterday we're planning to go back again tonight. Plus, we got connected on Monday with a guy who might have some job opportunities for us. We'll see how things go.

On another note, we're heading to Chicago for a visit in July. We arrive late Tuesday night (July 3rd) and will be free until Friday afternoon. If you're one of our Chicago friends, we'd love to try to get together! We haven't made plans yet but will be doing so soon. Perhaps a cookout somewhere? A little potluck somewhere? Dinner at Pita Inn? (Oh, drooling.)