home improvements: den

When we downsized from our beloved Pine Lake house into a condo on the Decatur Square back in 2011, I thought that we had come to the end of our home improvement projects. And, for the first year in our condo, we didn’t do too much beyond a couple of painting projects.

When we moved down the hall to a different unit a year ago, we hired a painter to paint the entire condo. The new condo had a few issues that we needed to take care of, such as no light in the dining room and no lights over the counter. Slowly, we started doing more and more. I hired a grout company to come clean and seal the disgusting grout in the bathrooms. We installed shelves over the girls’ beds.

But then this January, Rob and the girls overruled my desire to take it slowly. They insisted it was time to tackle the den. In both the original unit and our new unit, the den was a bit of a furniture graveyard. The room had a dresser for storing art supplies, a couch that was too small to sleep on and a desk. The desk was a disaster with all four of us trying to share its small surface area. Mail was getting lost. The tv on top of the dresser had never gotten plugged in, even after over six months of having been there. The junction box in the ceiling for a fixture was hanging bare. We had no place for guests to sleep.

Rob and the girls decided that a big project to overhaul the den was overdue. We discussed what we would like: desks for everyone and a fold out couch for guests were the top two items. Rob found that the Elfa system at Container Store would fit the wall perfectly. I found a futon from IKEA that would have a low profile yet still be comfortable for two people to sleep.

As the den used to be such a wasteland, I never took a “before photo”, not in the 2.5 years we’ve been in this building (the two condos we have lived in are almost identical).

Even though we still have some work to do — artwork, chalkboard, floor lamp, etc. — the room is already heavily used. Success!

office – 20 mar 2014

office – 20 mar 2014