4th Update on Office Project

Sharing is caring!

If you haven’t been following along on my office cleanout goal or you are new here, welcome to the huge goal I set for myself to get done during 2017. If you want to see all the before photos of just how badly cluttered my tiny 8′ x 8′ office (formerly known as the breakfast nook) was. I realized as the month of May was ending that I had wasted the first 5 months of the year I had allotted myself for this task and so I got busy and took the before photos and posted them to publicly shame myself into getting busy.

Well, I’m sure if you have been following along, you gave up on me ever finishing by now. I am still not finished but I have done so much that I know I can finish this project this year. I have been much kinder to myself by doing just small chunks at a time that just didn’t seem worthy of reporting to the world here.

Here is the finished China Cabinet all closed up. The doors were not refinished like the rest of the cabinet and we have the drawer front that is missing where the long narrow slot is.

Ok, let’s open it up and show you what it looks like.

I wanted to show you the photo below because I had forgotten how cool the inside of the built in China Cabinet was. My Mother-In-Law is the one responsible for picking out the wallpaper and refinishing the woodwork that got done in this office. That was long before December 2000 when we moved in. Look how she wallpapered and even added a narrow border to the back wall of the shelves! I love it and it will stay that way for as long as it can last.

I need your help. I am looking for clear plastic “C” or “U” shaped trim to put on the edges of the shelves to hold the vinyl flooring edges down smoothly. I cannot seem to locate any. All I could find were 3″ long pieces meant to put to be used in the retail world to put prices on the front edge of shelves. These shelves measure just a hair under 7/8″ thick including the flooring. See how it wants to curl between the staples that are holding it in place? If you know where I can find this trim in 39″ long pieces or longer, please email me (lighthouselifelessons(at)gmail.com).

This is what the slot and bottom looked like before:

Below are two photos showing the stuff I store in the drawer slot and the bottom of the cabinet.

This is what the top section of the cabinet looked like before.

Here are some as I was clearing the shelves and reorganizing things.

I decided the effort put in here was so huge, I deserved to splurge a bit, so I ordered these white bins in two sizes off of Amazon. I will post affiliate links at the bottom of this post in case you like the looks of them. They seem much more sturdy than those I found in the stores locally and they are nicer looking too. I was very pleased with the quality and the look they provided. The best part is they only cost about $60 total and came in 6-packs! I have since noticed these same bins in a few YouTube videos and they always look like new, so I feel like they will last.

I did most of the work on the China Cabinet over Labor Day Weekend while I had the entire weekend and house to myself. I just turned on K-LOVE radio on one of the computers and cranked it up to keep me going. also

I made so much progress that I also tackled the left and right sides of hutch.

Then another day, I took on the top right drawer:

Then the next drawer down got the full treatment too:

Below is the one photo I forgot to take when I was doing the before shots. Doesn’t every large desk have the under the desk long skinny drawer of shame? This was mine.

No worries. I played Tetris with the boxes and trays I had around the house and did a ton of decluttering to get it to look like this. I don’t mind telling you I was really dreading this one, but it is a relief to know it is finally done.

So, you can see I HAVE been busy. I think I just need to sort thru about 3 more drawers of files and clear the tops of the tall file cabinet and the hutch. Then, hopefully, I will have room to put away the piles of paper still on the desktop that I couldn’t begin to fit into any of the file drawers.

I am thinking maybe one final check in but it may not be until after November, because in November I do this thing called NaNoWriMo and until that is over I will be busy planning and plotting and then, of course, writing at least 50,000 words on a new novel.

Stay tuned!

This post contains some affiliate links for your convenience.
Please see this site’s Policy & Disclosure Page for more info.

Here are the links for the bins I used (The price is for a 6 pack of each size so total cost was only about $60!):

Sterilite 16288006 Deep Ultra Basket, White Basket w/ Titanium Inserts, 6-Pack

Sterilite 16268006 Large Ultra Basket, White Basket w/ Titanium Inserts, 6-Pack

You can see previous updates here:

The Elephant in the Room (6/1/17)
1st Update (6/11/17)
2nd Update  (6/15/17)
3rd Update (6/17/17)

Sharing is caring!