Hardly Working

Share it Please

Tweet

Ever since moving into my new place I have been itching to start decorating. I enjoy buying things that I think will fit well with my home and I generally feel that purchasing blase pieces is a waste of both time and money. I would rather go without for a little while and wait until I find that perfect desk, chair, dinning room table, or whatever it is I 'need.' Unfortunately we have so MUCH furniture to buy right now that we have a lot of missing items. I keep reminding myself that I do have a wedding registry and waiting two months really isn't that long... First world problems.

 In the mean time I wanted to make Lauren's office an enjoyable room. He spends at least 10 hours a day in that room, and that is just when he is working! His office is also doubling as our media center until we actually put furniture on the first level, so he is often there even longer. Two days before Lauren was set to move his office in, I decided to add some little touches. This was a relatively cheap 'makeover' coming in just over $100. Keep in mind that I already owned some of the items used.

Lauren likes the clean lines and simplicity of '60s style, so I wanted something that would reflect some of those basic principles with a modern, professional twist (it is an office, after all). First I dug around in some of his boxes and I found some cards he had received from Nintendo depicting hand held devices through the ages. The cards had bright backgrounds that I found somewhat reminiscent of Andy Warhol, so I thought they would make great background pieces. I kept everything else simple and in either black or white. The one exception is a poster of Chrono Trigger that he has never hung out of fear of damaging it. Lauren works in IT and is involved in video game culture, so I thought these would be appropriate and fun. I found some cheap frames at Walmart that worked perfectly for the project without breaking the bank and I bought 3M velcro strips to hang them with. Since it is a rental I wanted to be sure and respect the walls.

I clearly need photography lessons... sorry for the odd angles, it was hard to photograph them without getting a reflection of myself.

For one last item of decoration I hung that Chrono Trigger poster in its own frame. This kept it from being damaged and allowed Lauren to finally use it. I wish I thought to photograph this items before hanging them on the walls, but this is all a learning experience!

Same story. I told you I need lessons.

Now that the decorating was done, it was time for some functionality! It has been extremely hot here and running a swamp cooler can be a bit expensive. More than that, if you haven't been to New Mexico or a dry environment that uses swamp coolers before, they just don't cool your house down like AC does. Lauren actually already had a tower fan, but customers had complained about how loud it was, so he chose to bake. I found a fan that was billed specifically for being quiet and energy efficient. The fan itself actually used up half the budget, but at 2 cents an hour to opperate, you can't beat that! Now let's hope that wasn't a lie. My next energy bill should show the truth of it.

Finally I brought in a white cube storage unit that I owned and bought new black cubbies for it. I used my more colorful cubes for a different project so that I could keep to the neutrals rule. Since Lauren not only has his work desk and computer in this room, but also his PS3 and other gaming equipment I thought that some storage would be essential. He also used the top side of it as a media center so he could set a second monitor on top for gaming.

Lauren loved the new room and has moved in his entire office now. His first day working in it was Thursday! In fact, he liked it so much that he is there right now.