home office makeover - getting to zero

It's been a few weeks, so I thought it was time for an update on my home office. Between being out of town, the end of the school year, work, and general life, work has been patchy, but we have made progress.

Why have I found three extra doors when I can think of only one place upstairs that has a door removed? Good question. The answer is, I have no idea but I'm keeping them for sure. "You never know when you need a door," someone said at some point.

Cleaning out all of this, let's be honest, crap felt so good. I feel like the house has lost 20 pounds. And we cleaned at the right time as our neighbor was prepping for a garage sale, so everything went upstairs and out on their yard. Then the tarp went up.

I got a spray gun for Christmas and what better chance to use it for the first time than in a space where every single surface needs painted. We washed everything down and then went to town. The plan was to start with the ceiling and work our way down. I had grand visions of just spraying the whole space in a matter of hours and then spending the afternoon relaxing with a well earned G&T.  But, it turns out that whole 'you get what you pay for' thing is true.

Our gun was crap. It didn't have much power, in spite of the air compressor, and it was really...sploty (which I've just declared a word). It could very well be the fact that we were spraying a ceiling and maybe the thing wasn't meant to go at weird angles. At any rate, we were just able to get the ceiling done before I was ready to choke myself with the damn thing out of frustration.

So the paint gun went into the trash and I brought in reinforcements.

I love painting white over white. I'm amazed at how un-white the old white is/was each and every time.

I used Kilz and ceiling paint on the ceiling but since this is after all, a basement, I choose to go with Behr Basement Waterproofer paint on the walls. We haven't had any water in here (knock on wood) but an ounce of prevention... The paint went on well, it is nice and thick, and covered like a champ. We did two coats just as a matter of course but we could have easily gotten away with one coat.

While the girls and I painted, the hubs made fast work of drywalling this little spot since I'm not really a fan of the 'here are the back of our stairs' look. God I love a man that can knock out some drywall!

Everyone in the house pitched in and after several afternoons, we have arrived at this. A bright, white, empty space. I told you I got a lot of light down here. Now we can actually start on the room.

Let's take a minute to look at the before and 'in process'...

I love it already. Let's celebrate by crossing some things off the list.

Goals for the space:

- brighten it up

- fix and paint the floors

- do something with the exposed ceiling

- replace the window to let in even more light

- girly this place up to create a happy, adult work space

- add more light

- use what you HAVE

- get organized girl!

I've got great things planned for that floor and several ideas on the lighting situation so let's see what ends up sticking.

Do you like to have helpers when you work on a project at home? Would you rather spread a project out or get it done as quickly as possible? Is it weird that I have about three different light fixtures sitting in my basement and I want to use them all?