Originally published on Butterfly Mind, June 2015.
I’ve written ad nauseam about how I’d one day like to have a room of my own. A room where I can write, where I can work, where I can think.
With our new house, it has finally happened. In our first week at the new place, I took a week off of work to help unpack, and to rennovate my brand new office: a room of my own.
Before:
After:
I can’t tell you how happy this room makes me đŸ™‚
Specs:
The office is a utility room in the finished basement. I share the space with a window, a water heater, the furnace, and the fuse boxes. Which are handy, since I have plugged in a heavy duty treadmill so I can walk while I work.
YEAH BOYEEZ!
My old bones can’t take the high impact workouts I used to do, and in my former “office” setup (in a corner of the rec room) I sat for 8 hours a day. My circulation was terrible, my shoulders hurt from hunching, my knees hurt from scrunching up in my chair, and I was always cold. Now I can get gentle exercise as I age, keep my circulation going, and keep warm, all while also being productive at work. I walked about 25 miles in the first four days of owning the desk. The desk is an Uplift sit-stand-walk desk and can be raised and lowered. When I want to sit, I lower the desk and slide my monitor and keyboard over to the sitting side.
To renovate the office, we ripped out old carpet and painted the cement floors. Eventually we’d like to install cork flooring throughout the basement, but that’ll take some time to save up for. I sanded the windowsill, the trim, and the baseboards, slapped on a coat of primer, and then brushed on two coats of semi-gloss white paint. I wanted a bright room since I spend so much time in there, and I really wanted a happy spring green color. I chose lime mousse from Valspar, but the paint itself is from Benjamin Moore, for which there is a family-owned store here in Blacksburg (they matched the color for me).
The ceiling is not shown in the pictures, but I painted the ceiling with a bright white ceiling paint. Holy crap, that was a pain in the ass. The ceiling is textured. It was not fun. But it looks a million times better than the dingy yellowing paint that was there before.
Today (and this week), I will sand, prime, and paint the doors in the same white as the trim. And then, my office will be complete. Yay!
Andrea Badgley 