The Taming of the Office

So we've been living in our house for just over 9 months now, but we've failed to even hang most of our decorations and artwork, let alone decorate the house in general!  It's sad, I know... But we want to fix that!

So we started with the most daunting rooms- the office.  That miserable room has been the graveyard for all things unknown.  It's where we have the litter box, the bean bag chair, the desk that's covered in all the papers that need to be sorted and taken care of.  It's an unholy mess.  The window isn't even intact!

So we started decided on design ideas.  Since it's mostly Mike's office, I went with some pretty masculine and modern ideas.  I decided everything months ago, fyi.  I even bought the paint and the window treatment things! 

AND then months later I finally decide to just grit my teeth and bear it.

And this?  That's a scratching pad.  For my declawed cat.  What, you say?  I know.  He's weird.  It belonged to a female kitty who lived with us for a few months.  He was in love with her.  Apparently he still is.  I wasn't allowed to touch it.  I kid you not.

So we emptied the room first.  THAT'S a chore.  And to be honest, the papers that need to be gone through are now sitting in the living room waiting to be gone through (haha!).  BUT we got it emptied.  Into our guest room.

This was the guest room.

And Orion is STILL guarding his post.

I then spent 90% of my Saturday scrubbing, taping, and then painting.  I was so sore by the end of the day!  But I finished, with only a minimal amount of paint on the ceiling and trim.  :)

See my lovely paint job???

And then Sunday I touched it up because it apparently needed a second coat (after the guy at home depot swore it wouldn't) and I didn't quite have enough paint to do a whole second coat.  I was rather upset.

And Orion was SO worried about his scratching post.

But it worked out nicely, and we actually got a lot of the stuff moved back into the room that evening.  The desk moved to the other side of the room to make it look bigger.  I now have a desk where the closet was.  I organized his bins and files and now everything has a home.  :)  It looks fabulous!  And it's not even done yet.

Orion is still only worried about his scratching post.  You do notice it's still there.  Normally I would not be ok with this, but I'm so upset that I broke my cat's heart that I can't bear to get rid of it.

Tonight I still have to hang everything on the walls, including- 2 cd racks, 1 large shelf (in the closet), 5 degree frames (2 degrees, 3 certs), a shelf for a trophy, a plaque, 4 paddles, two dry erase boards, and 3 beautiful pieces of artwork.  Maybe someday I'll figure out how to design a movie reel piece of art for the wall as well.  I also have to make the cornice and hang it.  I might hang the curtain rod back up as well and hang a nice sheer there, but there are so many trees outside it's honestly not necessary at all.  Oh, and I have one more trip to Ikea before I'm finished.

And I'm sure the scratching post will STILL be there when I'm done.