You can cancel my Clean House appearance

Inspired by Apartment Therapy's January Jumpstart projects, I got disgusted with the corner of my living room that has been serving as my home office, only I hadn't quite embraced that I had anything other than a (super tempermental) computer on a college-y desk. Which was surrounded by SO. MUCH. PAPER. That horrible oak bookshelf isn't mine - one time D&A were moving it from their house and I chose its storage place to be in mine, because I frankly needed the space for 1.5 years of Vogue. You can see the breaker box poking out behind it - Murch told me back then, "I don't want to have to move this thing every time one of the circuits needs flipping" which I took issue with for two reasons: 1. I told him I wasn't going to fill it with anything heavy (yeah, right) and 2. I am capable of flipping a breaker, for crying out loud. Nonetheless, he was right - it has been a terrible inconvenience to have a bookcase full of vases and Vogues in front of the breaker box.

Anyway, I persuaded DanaLee to go the 3.5 hours to the Virginia Ikea (Ee-kay-uh) with me a few Saturdays ago, and though her trip was only medium fruitful (no red bookcase for DL, boo), mine was deliciously fruitful.

In the grand tradition of b&a photos, they are kind of cheater because the after has great lighting and the before is a craphole, but let's be honest - that corner really did look like that most of the last 3 years.

BeforeAfter

I'm not kidding myself, it's not like I'm doing anything particularly innovative with the design here - the Vika desk system is probably among the cheapest furniture choices in the whole joint, but I do approve of its whiteness and the scale of the left hand portion of the L is only slightly too big. I love how I had a little space leftover to push the filing cabinet partially under the desk, because it still gives me some room for my legs when I need a workspace. I also know there are some cord-wrangling problems and I didn't touch that bulletin board yet, but I will soon, and it will also be more tidy.

Here's the thing: it feels grownup to finally have committed to an office space in my house. It's weird how at some finite point in your adulthood you realize that you have had bank accounts for more than a decade and you have things that need filing, that need organization, that your dad isn't taking care of the realities of your life anymore. I had that trunk there, on the right, that had some hanging files in it, organized in a burst a few years ago, but the space on top of the files was an 8" pile of things that ought to have been in those files. It took the better part of a week of nights to go through every single paper in that corner, and I got rid of tons of stuff, put the others in their rightful place, and even got to bust out those super fun folders Aesh (the grand poobah of such projects) got me that say "I am so Organized." For a minute, anyway, they are not ironic.

Oh, and moving Cakes over the breaker box freed up that wall, so here's what I ended up with over there. I am a little undone over the even number of things, but I can't figure out exactly what else to do. I'm not sold on the plate - it's mass produced and from Home Goods, so not particularly unique or amazing, though it's pretty, but the other 3 objects are all interesting. The orange print is from 12fifteen's etsy shop, the wonderful photo (a metallic print, so it kind of shimmers) is a Christmas gift from E&T by Linda Plaisted, whose Photoshop work I find interesting and not overmanipulated, and the the old, green Sabbath School certificate was among my many fortunes found for $36 total at the Fancy Gap Antique Mall on the way home from Little Rock. (It is, I'm sorry to say, closing, so I am glad to have found it. I love Fancy Gap. I rarely want to live pre-electricity and plumbing, but it makes me want to be a mountain woman in a big skirt and crooked cabin.)

Style-wise, I sometimes wonder if I've gone way overboard on the vintage modern inspiration. I can't get enough of AT's house tours and design*sponge's sneak peeks. My former style was whatever Pottery Barn calls itself - neutral pieces with smallish bits of color (purple for a long time). What I love now is very trendy, just like the PB look was a few years ago, and while I think vintage modern lends itself to a lot more imagination, I think I lack the editing instinct that lots of the people with the really beautiful homes have.

This one, for example, I love so much, but I know I couldn't be comfortable in her living room with its bare floor. Ultimately I'm just not tidy enough to pull off the more spare, purist vintage modern aesthetic, but I am very attracted to its odd pieces, handcrafted and funky-colored objects, and the freedom to buy old (and sometimes really cheap) furniture. I like the hunting, I like the mixing of styles, and I love groups of things. But I only have the one room to play with, and though it has many angles and walls, I have a lot going on, and maybe too many groups. I definitely feel like my personal design aesthetic is undergoing a big evolution, and maybe I'm embracing the things I love with a hair too much gusto - sort of like the vintage modern equivalent of Victoria magazine, which I subscribed to in high school and thought, at the time, that it best represented what I loved. Of course, I was stuck with hearts and flowers wallpaper and a million bouquets of dead roses, so it's easy to fit that look within the imagination of Victoria.

The point of all this is that I don't post this to brag on the design, but to brag on the organization, FINALLY, of my adulthood. I am going to be thirty freaking two years old next week. It was about time.