We’ve made a few small updates to the office / bonus room over the last while and I realized I hadn’t really blogged about them, so this post is a bit of a mish-mash to bring you up to speed!

We’ve made some big changes since I last shared the progress on our office/bonus room space .

Mainly this – the addition of a murphy bed!

I’ve posted a few updates of how our double desk is evolving (here and here) and we’ve done a few more things in there too which I will post about soon, BUT back to the murphy bed.

Earlier this week I shared our guest room makeover. We had guests from England staying with us in April and needed two sleeping quarters. So, the murphy bed addition became a priority for the first part of this year.

Here is the room sketch (shared here) that shows our layout plan for the room.

And here is a pic of the room from way back in the early Fall shortly after we moved in. Basically boxes and storage at that point but with a wall ‘bump out’ that had major murphy bed potential. I will pause for a moment to see if you can guess which space I am talking about.

Okay, so now that we have that sorted, we chose our murphy bed. We did a lot of research but kept coming back to styles that Costco sold. All of the reviews were good and the price seemed pretty decent for what was available. After measuring our wall, we decided to go for this configuration.

One of the main reasons we chose this option was that the shelving  portion came with a cord/wire grommet. Our main phone jack is on this wall so this allowed us to keep it there and saved the trouble of rerouting it to another location. We liked the idea of the extra storage as well and the open shelving to break up what could be a dense wall of ‘closets’ otherwise. When closed, the bed looks like a large armoire or cabinet and runs along the same wall as our existing double closet in the office.

Does this photo give away the fact that I am short-ish? 5′ 3″ problems Y’all. Look up, way up.

Anywho, The top shelf has some faux grass and little tin pot from Ikea. I used the same one in our guest room. Beside that is a bamboo-ish box that I’ve had for years.

The next shelf holds other items I already had, a green candle, tin pot, pear tea light holder, owl paper weight (which I think is older than I am since I’ve had it for as long as I can remember – seriously, I had it in my childhood. I wonder if my parents even know I have it. I think it’s theirs.) and a photo that I took when we visited England in 2008. Ah, such good memories. This was a pub we stopped to have a drink at after going for a walk through a really cool nature reserve called Burnham Beeches (say that five times fast).

So, there we are! And how does the bed work? Well, take a peek…

(note: the .gif is absent of guest because apparently having a tripod with a camera on it in the corner of the ‘bedroom’ is frowned upon when entertaining. Ask me how I know.)

 I joke. I joke.

Last month I left you with our progress on the double desk in our office/bonus room. At that point it was looking like this:

The desk was complete but in need of stain (if you are new to this blog you may wish to catch up on the vision for this space here).

Well, wait no more. Ta da!

Stained!

We went with a nice rich brown that was deep, but not too dark. Here is how we did it…

First, I taped around the wood desk top along the walls and cabinets. The desk is fixed to the wall so I could not pull it out.

Then, I gave the desk a thorough light sanding (220 grit sandpaper) and followed that with a tack cloth to pick up all the dust.

Next, I did a coat of wood conditioner. Wood conditioner is great for prepping your surface to receive the stain uniformly. I used Miniwax Water based Pre-Stain Wood Conditioner. I chose the water based product because it has less fumes and clean up is easier.

I applied the wood conditioner with a brush and used a rag to rub it in and pick up the excess conditioner. After it dried I did another light sand and followed again with a tack cloth.

For the stain, I tested a water based stain (on a scrap piece of wood) but was not happy with the results. In the end I went with a oil based version as I liked the finished product better. I chose Varathane Ultimate Wood Stain in Chocolate.

To apply, I used a foam brush and applied quickly in sections. Then I followed with a rag to rub it in and pick up the excess stain. You can use a brush or rag to apply but I opted for a foam brush because I could just throw it away when done. I hate cleaning brushes after they have been used with an oil based product. Blech.

I only needed one coat of the stain, so once that was dry I applied my first coat of polyurethane. The poly protects the surface and helps seal in the stain.

For the poly, I went with Miniwax Oil-modified Polyurethane.

I’m sure most of us can sympathize recognize this…

 

So, I organized. Awhhh yeah! My favourite word (oh wait, there is “wine” and “coffee” in the dictionary too). Okay, so maybe my third favourite word. Anyway, now the pile-o-clutter looks like this.

 

Serenity.

To achieve this calmness, I first separated the stack-o-chaos into piles. The point of this was to see what categories I could lump them into.

I came up with:
1) “Reference” (for things like recycling schedules, Chace’s school notices etc)
2) “For Review” (notices about programs I may want to check out, forms I have to read still etc)
3) “Action Required” (forms I need to fill out such as book order forms, field trip forms etc) and
4) “Projects” (ALL the paperwork that comes home from Chace’s day – spelling, art, poems etc.).

A note about the “projects” folder: when that folder gets full I take the paperwork up to our office where it gets placed in a larger box. Once a year I go through the box and save the best pieces or my/Chace’s favourites. I recycle the rest (will he miss a piece of paper with an orange crayon line across it when he’s 20?). In the end I am left with one large manilla envelope for each year filled with all of the papers I’ve kept for that period.

The file compartments attach together easily by simply sliding in and latching together in the back.

 

I used these Martha Stewart adhesive metal bookplates to label my files, but from what I’ve heard they are hard to get now or discontinued. I don’t know why though because they are awesome! To print the words, I used my label maker (aka my third arm).

 

To attach the file system to the tile backsplash I simply propped it up and used a few 3M Command picture hanging strips to keep it in place.

Tucked in beside the fridge, I now have a tidy, clutter free system that helps keep me organized.

 

Do you have any tips and tricks for keeping clutter at bay?  I’ve been using this system for awhile now and LOVE it.

Stay in touch and follow along…

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Hello friends! Happy New Year! I hope you all had a lovely holiday and are refreshed and ready to tackle 2016. I know I am.

When I last left you in the office it was looking like this…

Inspiring no?

No.

At the same time I also shared a vision board and floor plan (direction) for our little “bonus room” to be turned office/games/extra guest room. You can find more details here if you’d like to read more about that.

The vision…

The plan…

First on our agenda was completing our custom made double desk along the back wall. I was inspired by desks like the ones below and thought something like them could really work for us.

*This post contains affiliate links*

There are a few areas of our new house that remain unpacked for logistical reasons and our office/craft/bonus room is one of them. As such, it’s taken priority.

On the top floor we have a large room which was labelled as the “bonus room” on our walk through. It is in addition to the three bedrooms but instead of carpeting it has laminate flooring. It has a much different feel than a bedroom and was previously set up as an awkward TV room. Here is how it looked on our first house showing.

As you can see, it is a large room and is flooded with natural light. We thought it would be the perfect spot for our office and a craft/bonus room. It’s a large enough space to hold two ‘zones’.

The desk from our old house didn’t work in this space so I sold it on Craigslist. I sold the old printer station too.

And you may recall these photos from last week when I shared that the room was this current hot mess.

Ah, the sweet smell of transition.

As annoying as this was is to a neat freak like me, it was actually relatively organized (the boxes were in ‘zones’). But most importantly, we had a plan.

Here is a rough (not to accurate scale but so you get the idea) floor plan for this room.

As you can see, we are going to build a double desk which will run along the back wall. Rounding out the “office” portion of the room we will have a credenza to hold our printer and office supplies. As well, we will have a craft island which will most likely be on wheels so that it can be moved as needed.

The recessed area to your immediate left as you walk into the room is the perfect spot to install a murphy bed. With Chef Kev’s relatives overseas and in other provinces, it is really important to us to have a few extra beds. We want to make sure we can comfortably sleep anyone who is passing through for a visit! Since the craft island will be on wheels, we can move it when the bed is down and in use.

This leaves us with a great open space as well. We see getting a games table and/or using it for some extra crafting or project space.

Here is a mood board showing you the feel of what we are hoping to achieve.