Working at home has unique challenges. Like two year olds climbing me mountaineer style while yelling to look at Google images of elephants and YouTube videos as I attempt to create spreadsheets or run payroll. There is also the challenge of keeping a working office in my home. We don't have an extra bedroom for a dedicated office and though we have a basement, it's unfinished and not great for working. Lastly, since I'm often working while my kids are home I need to be in a central location like our open living room/kitchen area. This means my "office" was actually half of our closet-like pantry with sliding doors. It's not a bad-sized pantry but it also had to house arts and craft supplies, cleaning supplies, medicine, paper towels, etc.
It wasn't ideal but it kept it all close at hand, out of the reach of the girls and out of sight when the door was closed. I would have loved to get it all out of there but I wasn't about to have an open work station in my living room. I wouldn't like it aesthetically and it would be impractical to have it where curious little gremlin hands could get to it all! I had seen secretary desks and I thought they would work but I'm super cheap and didn't want to spend the amount of money I would need to on the good ones I'd seen.
Then one miraculous day I was scrolling through Facebook as I tend to do 90% of my days when I saw this beautiful lady!
She was being sold for cheap in a local buy/sell/trade group so I snatched it up. The seller even knocked a few bucks off the price when I offered her my old unused wooden desk as a partial trade. And her husband delivered the new one and hauled the old one away! Pretty sweet deal.
The next day I got to work moving things from the pantry to the secretary desk. The challenge was making things behind the glass look pretty and living roomy, rather cluttered, boring and officey.
I picked up just a few things at Target like wire mesh hanging folder baskets, pretty printed file folders, and a white plastic basket weave-looking basket for some small items. Other things fit nicely on the inside of the desk. I added some small finishing touches like photos and a vase and I am SO happy with the result! I've already annoyed everyone on my personal Facebook page with pictures of my "baby," so now it's your turn!
Most of the drawers are empty for now, but I did use the bottom drawer to put my girls' little figurine toys in.
What do you think? Could you make something like this work for you?
