Home Office for a Homemaker

This weekend we began the building of a shed.  I will post more about that when it is completed.  Let's just say that it has been a real learning experience. 

In the meantime, in between painting and scraping the fence and only on the rainy days, I am starting to set up a home office for myself in a space off our bedroom.  The upstairs of our house has a lot of gables and I am using one for my sewing nook and I am going to use another for my office. This gabled area of the upstairs is higher in the center than in my sewing nook area.  Honestly, I would prefer a space on the main floor of our house but there isn't any space, so here is the space I will be using. The only drawback is that it isn't a separate room and I can see this area when I am in bed.  So it will be a challenge but once I get this set up, I must keep this picked up. 

 When I took these pictures I didn't bother picking up as it seemed pointless to pick up the area in order to take a picture and then start to pull things out, rearrange the room and so on.

The loveseat is from our old living room set from 1997 and the old round table and chair we have owned since 1986.  To the right of the windows are my bookshelves of cookbooks.  This is how this area has looked for a while.  I used to scrapbook and stamp cards here in this area and lately it has become a dumping ground. 

Yes, the skylight windows are nice but when we put a new roof on the house we will be having those windows blocked and completely enclosed and roofed over.  They are nice for light, but they leak during a rain storm and the only way to fix the leaks is to get a ladder and climb up on the roof and caulk around them.  It is dangerous and not worth it.  Notice the strategically placed plastic wastebaskets in the lower right corner of the picture.

If you sit at the table facing the skylight windows, this is to the right of the table.  This is hidden from view until you approach the table and look to your right.  Hence, this is a dumping ground for papers, items to put in scrapbooks and things to file away and by now I should just throw away. 

One of those file cabinets is completely empty from when I purged some files last year and I know that I could easily purge another one.  So, I am blessed with a special area that I can use for sewing and now a separate area for a "Homemaker office."  Again, I would prefer my office to be on the main level as I like being around my family, especially in the evening, but if I can set up an office area upstairs and keep my stuff organized in that area, then I can easily grab a file and my laptop and work on it at the diningroom table whenever I want. 

My main goal is to keep my calendars, cookbooks, projects, coupon book, craft items, and other things I work on in one area.  I can always pick up one thing and work on it at my diningroom table whenever I need to but I really need one space to give all of these things a home and keep them organized. 

This is the end of the extra space in our house.  Every other space in the house has a purpose.  My new office space is perfect and I am sooo blessed.  I have found ways to use up those gabled spaces in the upstairs of our house.  My sewing nook area has been perfect except I have to remember where the gable is in relation to where my head is when I am moving around up there.

As for office type supplies for my office, I don't have to worry.  When we closed the law practice that I worked at, I was told to take anything and everything.  I have staplers, staples, scotch tape and dispensers, paper clips, pencils, filing trays, a paper cutter and more.  I am set.

Every woman needs a place to call her own, an office.  I remember back 25 years ago we lived in a two bedroom house and I found a corner next to the furnace in the basement. I squeezed in an old dilapitated desk and a file cabinet and used a "trouble" light for lighting.  I tacked up a poster on the wall and it was my space.  It didn't matter how rustic it looked, I loved it because no one was going to bother what was in my space.  Oh, and I didn't even have to leave the room if I wanted to throw a load of laundry in or change the furnace filter. 

Find a space to call your own, even if it is next to the furnace.  Every homemaker needs a separate space from the kitchen and her bedroom to have a home office.  I really believe it.  I know that I am fortunate to have this area to call my own, but if you are able, find a corner in your home that you can use to keep your papers, projects and cookbooks, for example.  We all need this.  If I didn't have this gabled area off our bedroom to use for an office, my next step would have been a small card table and a folding chair put up somewhere in our basement.  Our house was built in 1892 and the foundation is brick and there is a poured concrete floor.  I am constantly fighting the cobwebs down there, but I would make a space for an office down there if there wasn't any other space.