Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Office

View from my tiny office. Sorry so blurry, the camera on my phone
has had some attitude issues lately.

Last October, when we moved out of the camper and into our grain bin house, I asked my husband, "Please make me a desk, any kind of desk, I don't care what it looks like." I was seven weeks into classes and so tired of doing the majority of my work at school. I needed a home base for my course work, and the previous desks we had in our prior home were too large. So, dutiful guy that he is, he grabbed a hollow core door from the decrepit house on our property, propped it up with old file cabinets and pieces of two by fours, and voila! I had a place to do homework.

I made it work but, the door/desk was ugly and I had no desire to put forth the effort to paint it. It had limited space for spreading out my work, and its feng shui was totally kitty wampus. But, we had other projects of more pressing importance like building our kitchen counter top, and securing shelter for our livestock for the winter. So my desk was put on the way, way, back burner.

Until last week.

Keith had been saving a lovely piece of oak veneered plywood for me, and he was happy to rip out my temporary desk and build me a new one. Of course as with all built-ins here, nothing is square or perfectly straight. Here is my professionally done office floor plan. Can you see the challenges?

With Keith as our scale model, he's average height and weight, you can see how cramped the space is,

and yet, he managed to do a fantastic job of cutting out my new desk to fit the curved grain bin wall. We used newspapers taped to the floor to make the template. Since his shop space is very limited, we both did much of the work outside, like sanding and applying a couple coats of polyurethane.

Supported by solid wall braces only, no legs, it gives me tons of storage room underneath. The hole at the top will allow me to thread all my computer/printer wires down to my CPU without cluttering up desktop space, which is now almost twice what it was before.

Meeting my cubby shelves at a right angle, the desk placement allows me to easily turn and grab what I need. I'm now actively seeking some old file cabinets to slide under my desk.

On the opposite side of the office is my built in seating area. We  took a solid bookshelf my father built in the 70's, flipped it over face down on the floor and placed the old futon mattress from the camper on the back of the bookshelf.  It's long enough for a grandchild to sleep on and perfect for sitting with a good read.

The white shelf unit above, also came out of the decrepit house.

After cleaning and white-washing it, it is now a great place for paperbacks and memorabilia. Thus, every piece of furniture in this itsy bitsy teeny weeny office was recycled, reclaimed, or repurposed,  putting it in solid working order for the picky ass writer-wife who felt she was above a hollow core door desk.

Personal standards are so limiting.