Home Office Organization: Before Pictures

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I took these before pictures in June, and took my sweet time completing this organization project. Of course, I started in the midst of morning sickness and pregnancy-onset-insomnia, so I had my reasons to go slow. Really, though, organizing our homes isn’t a race. The whole point is to start and progress, so I started and slowly made progress. The result when acting deliberately instead of rushing, is usually a space that will stay organized.

We had really let the office become a dumping ground, and it had become so junky. Now everything has a place and I’ve got some systems setup to keep it in check. I can look at these before pictures with the satisfaction that it doesn’t look like this anymore! These pictures are truly what the office looked like, no cleaning or re-arranging first.

Our little piano nook in the office. Not too bad, but it doesn’t meet our needs either.

This is Matt’s football hero, Ty Detmer. This autographed poster is from Ty’s year of winning the Heisman. When we were first married this was up on our wall with thumb-tacks. Being framed is better. I had it framed last year as a Christmas gift. Matt loves it! This bad boy will stay put.

A view of the window. The asymmetrical positions of the clock and wood Philipines pendant really bothers me! What was I thinking?

A view from the main office entrance looking in. I love the sun coming through the window, which reaches all the way to my desk that is just through that doorway to the right.

I’d never done anything to the tops of the shelves, which I think is pretty obvious.

The ceiling is good. I like the ceiling. Nice to organize a room that has good bones – makes it a lot easier to decorate.

My BYU diploma is up top, which as a gift from my husband 6 years after I graduated. I cried I was so happy to have that piece of my life conserved so well. A few years later, I bought Matt this fancy frame holder for Christmas. He doesn’t really care if my ideas are original or not. In the spring we even got it up on the wall. Then in August we actually got his diplomas in there. (And yes, our diplomas are all from BYU, but we didn’t date or know each other while at BYU and we graduated different years.)

I created stand-in post-it diplomas, so you know, the wait wasn’t so bad.

The shelves were as arranged as best I could envision coming right out of the moving boxes. Having time to see what we really have and make a plan turned out better. Unfortunately we also let them get kind of junky with extra stuff.

See what I mean? Just kind of junky.

Some shelves just had non-shelf storage. Yeah, this bothered me a lot!

This is our printer stand. Nothing too bad about this except the scraggly cords. Every home office needs a shredder to defend against identity theft!

The desk … oh the desk. This is where some good organization was so needed! I came up with some good systems that have kept this desk clutter-free ever since. And the dust, well, we’re taking care of that too.

Oh the desk. Breeding ground of clutter.

Talk about dust! Whew! I didn’t need to re-vamp all of my organizing systems, there is some good stuff underneath all of that dust. More details to come.

Here is Matt’s view from his desk. He is the first to spy little people who are sneaking out of bed to come downstairs. Better him than me because I am the bed-time softy!

Matt brought this home from his 2 year mission to the Philipines he served for our church over 15 years ago. I like it!

I’m excited to show you the after pictures later this week! Check back soon!

From my home to yours,
Mary