Our DIY Office Nook on Apartment Therapy!

There has been a lot of buzz lately about offices carved out of closets and other small spaces in peoples' homes. Oliver and I jumped on the bandwagon with photos of our own workspace and today it is being featured on Apartment Therapy! Thanks again, Janel!

As many of you know, Oliver and I work from home most of the time, and while we do our best to keep work and life separated, it's a bit of a challenge in our less-than-400 square foot apartment. Our living room came with a somewhat irritating-at-first nook due to a protruding section of wall that contains the "Sprinkler Control Valve,"complete with industrial signage. The nook when we moved in:

As it turned out, that nook was the perfect width for an Ikea table top. Oliver and I painted the gray walls and yellow and white stripes, then Oliver and handy brother of bathroom fame mounted the table top to the three walls and added one central support leg. Oliver and I hung two overhead shelves and painted it all Benjamin Moore Black Satin - a charcoal-y dark gray.

As I've mentioned before, Oliver is a master of organization, and it doesn't stop at paper; he has some experience with network architecture, so he can set up a fully functioning, but very self-contained wireless office. All the computer-related mumbo-jumbo is hidden neatly under the desk, and while we have office stuff scattered throughout the apartment, I've done my best to cover it all with home-made fabric remedies. We also mounted computer speakers and holders for rolls of trace paper, which I'm constantly using.

We didn't want too much clutter above us, but we couldn't imagine not utilizing all that vertical wall space, so the shelves actually hold our collection of vintage milk glass vases and bowls, which we used for flower centerpieces at our wedding. I thought I would sell them after the wedding, but I had become attached - it look a year to amass the collection (there is more) and I think they're so beautiful. So, I'm thrilled to have a place to display them! Some of the pieces even hold office supplies, so they aren't solely decorative. We found the little cut glass lamp at Target, and it works great for evenings when we're burning the midnight oil. We found the pair of vintage Pollack chairs at Two Jakes in Brooklyn. The clock belonged to my Grandmother and is by Syroco Inc., the company that essentially invented plastic in the 1950s.

Even though the office space is fairly pleasing to look at, sometimes we just want it to go away. For those occasions, we hung West Elm curtains on an Ikea track and can close the office when we have company, or when we want a visual barrier from work. The curtains also conceal that pesky Sprinkler Control Valve sign and soften what used to be a very ugly corner in the apartment. I made those new pillow covers just in time!