So the first step to getting ready for this baby was to create a room for him. Problem being that we were using what was going to be the baby's room as a home office / guest room. So where does all of that business go? There was much debate. We decided pretty quickly that the guest room would just have to go away for awhile. We've slept on couches/air mattresses at our friends apartments for years. So asking them to do the same now really doesn't seem like that big of a deal. But a place for our computer? That we needed. But... I use every inch of
my studio. Our
living room could probably fit a desk but... no. The basement is a wreck and taking on a major home improvement project while super pregnant is not something I ever want to attempt ever again (one day it will be the most amazing playroom ever. one day).
Which left our bedroom.
But... who wants a computer in their bedroom? All the blinkey lights and noises? That would just be so...
college. On the other hand the way our bedroom is laid out we had an 8' x 8' area under the gable at the front of the house sitting completely empty and unused. That's bigger than some peoples' bedrooms. So finally logic and necessity kicked in and we took that empty space and created this:
It was pretty simple to do. Basically just bought a new desk to fit the space:
And emptied/reorganized all of the built in shelving and drawers. I donated piles of crap that we didn't use and with both drawers and shelves on both sides ended up with way more storage than we really need for a home office. SCORE.
Also cleaning off the shelves created new places for the many photos that we had framed in our guest room:
I even updated some of them which is happy.
And the thing we were most worried about - that this would end up like a college room - really didn't happen at all. We moved all the blinkey internet stuff to the basement and were a bit obsessive with our wire management system. So everything is clean and uncluttered. The view from our bed looks like this:
Although since we hardly ever close the door* it usually looks like this:
So not obtrusive! And having a computer in our room so far has been pretty nice. We didn't have a stereo or a tv in our room before. Now thanks to the magic of pandora and hulu it's like we have both. BONUS! There was even room in the space for an extra chair - just like a real office. The dog immediately claimed it as her traffic watching spot:
One last view from the new office into our bedroom:
If you ignore the sloppily made bed covered in a pregnancy pillow fortress and the plastic pack 'n play peeking out of the corner - both of which are temporary - it's a really nice space.
I can look for YELLOW BUSes with my doggie while you work!
Overall I'm really, really happy with how it all came out!
*Yeah I LOVE how our house is laid out (2 bedrooms on the first floor, big-ass bedroom on the 2nd plus a studio space). At first with the whole kids thing I was nervous about having the baby's bedroom on the first floor while our bedroom was upstairs. Now? YES PLEASE. I don't have to have a changing table in my living room b/c her room is so close by. And I can tell her to put her toys away in her own room - again saving my living room from becoming covered in plastic. Plus we're far enough away at night that I"m not woken up by all of her little noises. But thanks to the magic of a baby monitor I never felt like I was so far that I couldn't hear her if she needed me. And now with two of them it will be so, SO nice to have a place to get completely away. Yay for bungalow houses!