Progress on a Rainy Day

It rained here yesterday.  And I'm not talking a little sprinkle here and there.  I'm talking total downpour,  thunderstorm rain.  That's pretty much the way it went all day long.  Rain, rain, rain.  So our morning plans were cancelled.  And then our afternoon plans were cancelled.  And then our evening plans were cancelled.  Suddenly I had a whole day to get work done.  One son in camp, one exhausted from the sleepover he had the night before, and one son happy to help me out.  It was like the stars had all aligned at our home and I could actually get something accomplished.  Knowing this is an extremely rare event, I took total advantage of the time.  I got caught up on all of my work (yes, ALL of it).  I finished the laundry, I did the dishes.   And I finally had the opportunity to begin cleaning out the disaster area I call my office.  At the end of the day I had made serious progress.

In case you have forgotten what the room looked like--here's a before shot:

And a recent picture showing a definite improvement:

As I was clearing the space, I made mental notes that I thought would be helpful to me later.  I've listed some of the most useful observations below.

1. Everything I don't use regularly was cleared from the room.  That included the huge planter holding all my large rolls of fabric.  The fabric has been moved to the basement, the planter to the garden.
2. Most of the mess in the office is due to paper and envelopes.  I need a way to store these items where they can be easily accessible, but I would love to not have to look at them all of the time.  I think I have an interesting solution for this.
3. I love the color of this room, but I can't concentrate in it for more than 5 minutes.  So I have made the decision to repaint it.  Originally I had planned on a pale butter yellow, but after reviewing the contents of the room I may change my mind.  The computers and printers are all black.  The existing table, desk and bookcase are all white.  I think that a pale gray might tie everything together nicely.  There is a lot going on in this room, I am not sure it can handle more color. 
4. The window treatments have got to go.  This has been on my list for a very long time.  I hate them and have always hated them.  My plan is to make simple crisp white, soft roman shades with decorative black trim.  I am imagining the sun softly coming in through the shades and warming the gray walls up.
5. The style of the room will be an industrial country kind of vibe.  The farmhouse table we use for a computer desk has a a gray veined marble top.  I will recover the seats of the matching white chairs with black vinyl (which I already own) to match the black leather office chair in the room.
6. I would love a long area to put my printer and vinyl cutter on.  It would also be nice to have space to spread things out to dry.  This area could be used for shipping purposes as well.  I would love to be able to use the wall space above for notes, etc.  I have a plan for this that I can't wait to try.
7. Sad note of the day.  While son was helping me clean, he sliced open the palm of his hand with a rotary cutter.  Sitting right next to me, playing with my paper hole punchers, he grabbed what he thought was a new puncher and really hurt himself.  Terrible.  He is okay now, but it stressed to me the importance of having everything put in a proper location. Sharp things completely inaccessible in this case. 
   
8. Surprisingly, I have only one half filled bag of garbage so far.  This tells me I really do need almost everything in this room.  I just need a better storage system.

Lastly, I was able to open the shades today.  I have been so discouraged by the mess of the room, that I have kept the shades drawn for a very long time.  When I opened them, I was greeted with the sight below.  Beautiful stargazer lilies in bloom, my grandmother's favorite flower.  I planted them in this space of the garden specifically so I could see them from the office.  Until today, I had forgotten how pretty they looked from this view.