$15 Office Makeover

Well, hi!  I have, in fact, NOT fallen off the face of the earth.  Just in case you were wondering. 

Today...just a quickie little "before & after" of a room in our house.  This is the sunroom, otherwise known as the "computer/sewing/whatever-else-we-can-cram-into-it" room.  One half is my sewing area, the other half is DH's office area.  I have a lot of supplies.  HE has a lot of supplies.  Usually this room is an absolute  nightmare to look at.

Behold:

That's the office side.  My sewing side, when kept clean, is fine.  But this office...there were some inherent problems.

Problem #1: The Hutch.  Otherwise known as the "clutter magnet."  Really, it served no purpose but to provide a place for us to put stuff on, that we didn't know where else to put.

Solution: Get rid of it!
New Problem 1 1/2: Wanna see what 8+ years of sitting by a sunny window will do to a desk?

Yeah.  That's apparently the official place where the "sun doesn't shine."

Solution: Paint, of course!  I resisted the very strong urge to go to Home Depot.  I wanted to spiff up this room for as little money as humanly possible.  So to the basement I went, and much to my surprise and delight, we had almost a full quart of black semi-gloss paint.  AND primer.  AND I even found some little mini foam roller covers down there.  Our basement is a dark and scary place, but you can find good stuff there if you look!

Problem #2: The Big Hulking Chair
Just not fitting for such a teeny tiny room.  Plus, it spins around, so when the kids would get on it and use it like a piece of playground equipment, it put gashes in the front of the desk, making the desk even more unsightly. 

Solution: My $3 flea market chair!  A little paint & fabric, and there ya go.

And here is the new and improved desk, sans hutch, all freshly painted:

OK!  Moving on...
Problem #3: The Corner of Junk

Scary.

Solution: Shelves...was going to buy some from IKEA, but DH reminded me that we had some shelves down in the basement (see?) that his work was just going to throw away.  They'd been down there for more than a year.

Brought them up, cleaned them off, spent $12 on brackets, and.............

Ho yeah!

And here it is, all together...SO much better now!

I still need to find a solution for all those wires under the desk.  But I'm going to wait, because I have a feeling that the big old computer is about to be forced into retirement, to be replaced by a young ambitious laptop.  We shall see.

Oh and I couldn't resist...I was taking this picture, and I looked up, and this is what I saw :)

Bobbin Storage: the dramatic conclusion

Well, that was fast. Rarely (seldom? never?) do I actually accomplish something on the same day I think of doing it.  But this was so easy...and my life is just a smidgen more organized now.  :)

First of all, let me say thank you! to those of you with your helpful comments.  I can see I'm not alone here!  

It just so happened that as we were out & about yesterday, we were near the Home Depot.  So of course I stopped in.  Plumbing aisle.  Got this:

That is vinyl tubing, 1/2" on the inside, 5/8" on the outside...10 ft. long.  I used like 4 inches of it.  A little under $5 for the roll. 

Then I came home and cut little pieces, and cut those pieces open - like this:

Put them around my bobbins, making sure the thread ends were under the vinyl thing.  Well, not this one:

What the heck is THAT???  Seriously, what IS that?  I have no idea what happened here.  There's no saving this one.
Anyway, here are the rest, all nicely tucked into their...tubes, I guess? 

Ahhhhhhh.  So much better.  Before & after...

Oh, that does my heart good.

But I wasn't done...that thing they are in - it looks nice now, but it still gets in the way.  I need it off my table.  I have so precious little space.  So here's where the bobbins are living now:

 That's the side of my cabinet. Right under the thread (duh, like you couldn't see that). 

 There's the cat, getting hair all over my fabric. 

 Ahhhhhh.  No thread-y mess.  Up out of the way.  Love it!

("Rachel!  You're a genius!" you say?  No.  I got the idea from Pinterest.  See my post from yesterday.  ;)