A Room of One’s Own

You may remember a post a while ago in which I moaned about having no office space to work on Literary Emporium. Well, throughout December this got worse and worse with the increase in Christmas orders. There wasn’t a time when jewellery making supplies and packaging weren’t spread out over the table, floor, side, dresser...you get the idea. So, one of my aims was to create a dedicated work space when we moved house.

So, with a several trips to Ikea, I finally have some where to work and I couldn’t be happier with it. Despite me creating a work space Pinterest board for inspiration, I went for practicality over anything else as I just need to work efficiently.

So here it is....

 This desk from Ikea is perfect as I need to create a little making / packaging production line when I work. The chair is an old one I had and it’s not the most comfortable thing to sit on for eight hours a day but I found an old cushion to put on it which makes it more bearable.

A lot of the stuff in the office is reused and recycled so the only major outlay was the desk and a few stationary items (most of which I got for my birthday anyway).

I already owned the Cath Kidston storage tins and the lamp was only £5.49 from Argos. I’ve put my rolls of packaging twine on an old kitchen rolls holder and my tape and finished necklaces hang on a mug tree. I’ve reused some old place mats to protect the desk when I’m making stuff and the floral boxes under the desk are cheap ones from Wilkinsons (love Wilkos) and Ikea.

This vintage letter rack was a Christmas present from Ian and ideal to store all my crap (by crap I mean important paperwork that I need to sort).

 For some strange reason I’m a massive map geek so I treated myself to a huge map of the world which I’ve put up on the wall. I find maps so interesting so I often find myself idly staring at it. And it’s really useful when I get international orders as I love to find where they are heading to.  

This lovely wicker table was from my friend at work and the letter organiser on top of it was another bargain from Ikea and perfect for storing all my postcards. You can just see another map hidden behind the table – it’s a vintage map of Dorset that I found in a charity shop and is again very interesting to look at. The Dictionary of Quotations was another charity shop find (one of my best ever discoveries) and is absolutely fascinating and invaluable to me.

 My desk faces the window and Ian has got a similar (but smaller, ha!) desk set up behind me for him to do his marking and lesson planning. It’s really nice to spend the weekends working in here together in comfortable silence.

 So I’m really pleased to have created an office and workspace on a tight budget and I’m able to work so much more efficiently. And it may look tidy at the moment but it definitely won’t stay that way...