Tackling Clutter: Office Spaces

Hey friends! I'm about 2 days late to this game, and for that you can blame the gorgeous summer-like weather that has finally decided to stick around these parts. Oh, and my crazy tantrum-throwing toddler. I have been living outside because it keeps her so content. I decided to bring my "work" outside with me yesterday, and so here we are...finally.

Office space. It can be a table, often the kitchen table, or a whole separate room with a desk and shelves and the whole nine. If you're like me, then you have a little office space tucked away in a corner of the guest room. Because neither my husband nor I really "work from home", we don't need some elaborate office space. This little set-up works just fine for our needs at the moment. {Also, let me apologize in advance for some of these pictures. This room gets HORRIBLE light + I'm not good at photography to begin with, so yeah...hang with me.}

Today, I don't have an elaborate post for you like I did with the kitchen or pantry, because our office space isn't THAT big. Today, I thought it'd be helpful to outline how we organize office supplies, paperwork, and the like. Plus, I have a couple of easy DIY projects for you guys.

DIY Sterilite Drawer Upgrade

The desk we use was a hand me down that I painted black. I'm actually about to paint it white soon to hopefully lighten this space. The room that houses this little office nook doesn't get much light, as I mentioned, so I think that lighter furniture will help a little. Anyway, the desk has one little flip down drawer that's meant for a keyboard. Inside of that holds computer paper and cards for various holidays {Target dollar spot had a wide variety of blank cards a while back and I stocked up so I never miss a beat}. Aside from that one drawer, we have zero storage for office-related items. Enter one of my favorite little DIY hacks. I had about a million five plastic 3-drawer Sterilite containers from when I taught. They have fairly deep drawers and are great for storage. However, they are unsightly and NOT cute when used for home decor. I was at Target a couple of months ago {haha that was like thousands of Target trips ago}, when I stumbled upon some $1 file folders in gold, black and white prints in the dollar section. I wasn't quite sure how I'd use them, but I knew they were too good to pass up, so I bought a pack of 3. When I got home, I realized that they matched the decor in our guest room pretty well and immediately the idea came to me. I would use them in the front of each drawer to hide what was inside/make the drawers look high-end. HAHA, okay that's stretching it. They don't look high-end by any means, but they DO look way cuter than before. All I did was cut the file folders in half + trim in to size, then I just slid it right in down in the drawer where you would open it. This is how it turned out and I LOVE it.

turned into

Before

After

The drawers are organized as follows:

 Top: Computer paper

{You can see here how I slid the file folders in right at the front of the drawer. 

Also, this was before I cut them to size-I was testing it to make sure it fit.}

Middle: Office supplies, pens, highlighters, push pins, multi-tool, stamps, etc.

Bottom: Notepads+ folders

On the desk itself, I keep very few items, to maximize the small surface. To the left of the computer is a vase {thrifted} that holds all of our Sharpie markers. Behind the computer is the printer, which stays folded up most of the time. To the right of the computer is a a Target dollar spot file folder organizer, which I actually use to hold my calendars {for my blog/IG, and another for meal planning}. Next to that is the lamp, one faux flowered plant in a glass dollar store vase, and a frame with a free printable. That's it. KISS-Keep It Simple Stupid Silly. My history teacher in high school taught us that acronym, except he used stupid. I don't like calling y'all stupid, so I changed it to better accommodate my feelings.

That's pretty much it for how I organize our office space. Oh, I do have a Target dollar spot wire basket on the floor that we use as a trashcan.

And if you're wondering about that huge print of Emerson above the desk, well let me tell you about it REAL quick. When I was pregnant I walked our neighborhood almost daily. One day, Trey and I passed that frame {which was originally this weird green/yellow color} on the side of the road. It is HUGE and I knew I could utilize it for a DIY project. I made Trey carry it home for the remainder of our walk. HAHA. Anyway, I spray painted it white and added a $3 Office Max B+W engineer print {see this post on how to get your own}. So for $3, I got a beautiful piece of art for this space.

I know this post wasn't as detailed or as broken down as the others in this series have been, but hopefully you found it helpful nonetheless. Come back next week as I take on a wildcard {as in, I haven't decided which space I want to "tackle" yet- haha!}. XO!