This is the room that probably took the longest. We had SOOOO much stuff in here. First off, we moved the exercise bike into the garage. This was HUGE! It created a lot more space. Then we took down the writing desk and my husband took it into work to his new office downtown. It’s a really nice desk, but we didn’t need two desks in a small room. Then, we moved the bookshelves we got a few years ago from IKEA to the other side of the room.
This was easier said than done, because not only did we have to empty them completely, but they have to be bolted to the wall. Well, they don’t HAVE to be, but it’s a smart thing to do, especially when they are full of heavy stuff. We also got rid of one bookshelf. There was just too many large pieces of furniture in this small room (it didn’t match anyways).
The left bookshelf holds important keepsakes (mostly my husband’s, a few things of mine). The right shelf holds all of his ‘to be read’ books. He has a lot of reading to do!
We moved these to the other side of the room to make space for our new futon!
I love it. My parents said it was comfortable (they’re the only ones that have used it so far). The mattress is a full-size 10” spring mattress. It came with a 10 year warranty. I’m excited to actually have a proper guest bedroom (that also functions as our home office/library). This little room does quite a lot!
The closet works hard too.
It is lined with bookshelves.
This is the one area in Kondo’s book where I am a complete failure. She says to pick up each and every book and ask yourself if it sparks joy. When she did this with her own personal collection, she only ended up with 30 books to keep.
She also says to get rid of all of the books you haven’t read yet. She said ‘someday never comes’. Well, I don’t agree with this AT ALL. There is no way I’m getting rid of the books on my ‘to be read’ shelf!! Some of them are brand new!
So I failed a little with the books, but I did go through the process. I got rid of a lot of books, but I also kept a lot.
The black shelving holds the books we’ve read and want to keep. They also hold our French study books.
The black and wire shelf is my ‘to read’ shelf. Yeah. I have a lot of reading to do. The bottom of the shelf (not pictured) holds some miscellaneous items. I recently went through all of my greeting cards/sentimental items. I was pretty ruthless. I made one binder for cards I want to keep from friends/family, and one binder for items between me and my husband.
I punched holes in the cards and placed them writing-side up. . I didn’t do anything fancy with organizing them. They are in order by family member, but I didn’t make dividers or anything. I wanted to keep it simple! I plan to use the ‘one in, one out’ rule to keep it under control.
For the ‘love’ binder, I used a page protector and slipped our wedding invitation inside, then my shower invites, and then the anniversary cards and love notes exchanged between my husband and I and just a few wedding cards that I kept.
This metal stand used to be in our bedroom. But now it’s here in the office holding some baskets. The top shelf holds our shredder. The next basket is ‘items to send’ (gifts, etc.). The middle basket is gift wrap/shipping supplies. And the bottom basket is items to sell back to Hastings. Everything has a home!
The little basket drawers on the far right hold my electronic items that I don't use very often but still need (label makers, portable DVD player, iPad keyboard, etc.).
The top shelves in the closet hold my husband’s comic books.
This little green cabinet is empty. !!
We are fortunate to have lots of large drawers in our desk. We also have a small filing cabinet. I have one binder full of necessary papers to keep and that's it. The rest of the desk drawers just hold office supplies, extra printer paper, etc.
The desk drawers hold printer paper and office supplies.
And that is our office/guest room!
