Office Progress

So I picked the paint and then...what?

Where do you start when a project feels completely overwhelming?  

I always like to choose a task I know I can complete easily, and quickly.  If I'm staging a house, I start in a kid's room or a bathroom...small spaces where I know I can have speedy success.  That way when you've accomplished the first task, you feel more motivated to complete something a little larger.

In my office I decided to tackle the shelves, and the first thing I sorted was fabric.

I have lots of piles of fabric but I rarely use it so I grabbed it all off the shelves, 

got my coffee and turned on the t.v..

When you are starting a task that is overwhelming, like emptying an entire office so you can paint it, you want it to be fun!  So if there's something you can do while you listen to a radio program or watch a show on t.v., go for it! 

My fabric got purged and sorted into two metal baskets I had kicking around.

Next I emptied all my books off the shelves.  I plan to keep them in my bedroom from now on so it was another easy, quick job to just carry them in.  I'll do the book sorting after the office is done.

It's hard to be patient when you want to start painting and the room isn't empty yet, so I satisfied my need for colour by beginning the furniture painting.

He looks so cute!

I hired my son to build my new shelf.

Anytime you can enlist a little assistance, do it!  It cost me $10.  

He was happy for a little bit of cash and I was very thrilled not to have to build!

Of course eventually you run out of quick, easy jobs and you have to tackle the hard ones, but having those early successes in your pocket 

helps you feel more capable of moving to the bigger stuff.

Like painting.

Yuck.  I hate it so much.  

And right around this point I was wondering WHAT DID I DO???

But soon after I LOVED it and now the room is painted. 

(Did I mention this office is one big experiment?  

I had this vision of painting out a whole room in one colour...trim and all...along with some of the furniture so that the accessories would pop more.  So I'm experimenting.  Thus the dark trim.)

Currently we are living like this in the bedroom.

  

But soon enough I'll have it all back into the office.  

I'll show you the end result next time!