The Great Office Makeover ~ a peek into my world!

I would like to begin this post by proclaiming my undying love for IKEA. Thomas and I are very lucky to live quite close to the only IKEA in Eastern Ontario and if it weren’t for IKEA our house would be bare, save maybe our couches. I love that it’s so affordable yet looks fantastic and our style really jives with the designers at IKEA.

Most recently we undertook what we are calling “The Great Office Makeover”. When we moved into the house we wanted to have a room for our office and we were lucky enough to find a house that accommodated us. It is laid out in the room plan to be a bedroom, so when we started to talk about redoing the closet and creating a space with more storage we had to be very aware of the fact that it needs to be able to turn back into a bedroom should we ever move. The solution came through IKEA’s PAX Bedroom Wardrobe system. It’s easy to build it to suit our needs for an office, and very simple and inexpensive to turn it back into a clothing closet if need be.

Check out the super ugly fake wood closets. Ugh. They NEEDED to go!

One other thing I need to point out is that I am at my happiest when everything is organized. Some people even refer to me as an organization freak. It’s my nature – it’s just how I am! This was another reason why I was so excited to complete the office makeover.

I started by using the online IKEA PAX Wardrobe Planner and chose pieces to fit the space and it even printed it all out with article numbers and everything! We took that paper to the people in the bedroom section and they ordered everything up. Easy peasy….or so we thought.

What I didn’t realize is that with the online wardrobe planner, you don’t get to select the height of the wardrobes. We had measured and everything should have fit, until we realized we couldn’t actually stand the wardrobe up in the room – major fail! We had to load it back into the car and trek back to IKEA at 2pm in the afternoon on a Saturday. Now anyone who has ever been to IKEA knows that this is the absolute worst time to be visiting the store. It took us three hours to return everything and get the correct size. Finally we were home again and began building the wardrobe again. This time we were able to stand everything up and it actually went really smoothly from then on…except the dogs chewing random pieces we were trying to build. bad dogs. I guess little wooden dowels are just too tempting to resist a good chew!

Something I have wanted since I first saw it years ago is the Expedit book shelf. I have always thought it was really interesting looking and I love squares (as you may have noticed from my products: square cards and books). We found the perfects space for it in the office and that made me very happy.

Thomas and I are extremely pleased with the way the office turned out. We have more storage than we could ask for and things have proper places now! I have a space to package up my print orders and ship them out, Thomas has a white board to write out his thoughts and web designs and the dogs even have a new space to sleep in. Now we just need to figure out what we want in the frames and we’re set.

And here it is! I am completely in love with our new space and there are so many shelves that we actually don’t have enough stuff to put on all of them! Now that is problem I like.

From the other side – notice the empty frames (still need to figure out what’s going in there)

One thing I love about the new design is I have everything I need to package my orders up in one place as well as a surface to work on! Sweet! It also doubles as a display area for my products. I have my card samples hanging from the photo tree as well as some books and CD cases.

Just look at all the shelves and stoage…drool…Photographers please note my Shootsac Shelf! I convinced Thomas that my Shootsac and covers needed to lay nice and flat on their own shelf. Sweeeet! We also have a pretty rad business card drawer.

Some details. The keyboard that is framed is from my first ever Apple iBook. We saved it when the laptop died and finally found a display case that fit it. The mouse is Thomas’ old Apple Mighty Mouse that stopped working and the pair goes perfectly together.

With the entire office makeover there is one part that is hands down my favourite: the dog shelf. Now you might be asking yourself what a dog shelf is and I will explain. Ever since we got the EXPEDIT bookshelf, everyone kept telling us how Paddington and Corduroy could fit inside the cubby holes….so I made them pillows to fit! Now to put this in context I need to explain something: I am not crafty. I can’t sew to save my life and I quite often as a child would jam my mother’s “unjammable” sewing machine. So to decide I wanted to hand sew some pillows was a big undertaking. I measured, I cut, I stuffed and I sewed – I was so proud….until I put the pillows I had measured perfectly into the cubby holes and the were about 2 sizes too small. Oops. I guess I didn’t take into account the fact that the stuffing poofs them up and takes away from the size. I ended up stuffing two pillows into one hole and Corduroy loves it! Yay! I then cheated on the other cubby hole and just draped some fabric over a seat cushion and put it in there. They love both dog shelves so I guess that’s what matters most! I love looking over there and seeing the dogs in their little built in beds.

IKEA Ottawa
Pinecrest Shopping Centre
2685 Iris St.
Ottawa, Ontario
K2C 3S4

Want this look for your space?

Wardrobes are PAX with KOMPLEMENT Drawers and shelves and DRAMMEN doors with JIGGA Handles.
Book shelf on the left is BILLY.
Low book shelf is EXPEDIT with drawer and shelf inserts (the black ones are not available in Ottawa unfortunately, we got these in Toronto). Floating shelf is LACK with self adhesive battery operated DOT-it Classic LED lights from Rona.
Floating book holders by Umbra are from Chapters as well as the Fotofalls Desktop Photo Holder.
White boards are KLUDD Noticeboards
RIBBA Picture Ledges and RIBBA Photo frames in different sizes.
SPONTAN Magnet Board + magnets and Magazine Rack.
Awesome and fun Folders from Chapters.
Ottawa Dog Blog and Vancouver Dog Blog clocks.
FORSA desk lamps.
Desks are also from IKEA and we converted them to be standing desks.
Desk organizers are from Homesense.
Computers, as always, are Apple.

Have a wonderful day,

Liz – Contact Me, I would love to speak with you!

elizabeth&jane photography elizabeth&jane photography blog Destination Wedding Photography

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