Our Closet-Turned-Desk-Nook

Many of you have asked to see more of our revolutionary, cutting-edge, closet-turned-desk-nook. I've been meaning to do this for, oh? two years. (I really like to build suspense between Part I and Part II...)

In my defense, this area can be difficult to photograph.

Also, it's often a complete disaster area.

Back story: We had very little involvement in the house plans for our home. Because we bought our home as part of a neighborhood revitalization project, most of the details were pre-determined.

This was supposed to be an ordinary storage closet.

Being a person who is almost entirely incapable of "envisioning" something that isn't actually in front of me (come on, can people actually do that??) I never gave this theoretical "closet" a second thought. Closets are good. And necessary. The end.

But one afternoon during the framing stage, we drove over for another of our obsessive check-ins and as I stood on the footprint of our home - the one that seemed impossibly small, I noticed the perfect little nook-sized area, right smack-dab in the main living space (which is essentially all one room.)

"Could we put a desk here?" the wise wife asked.

Yada yada, the builders were happy (if a bit skeptical) to bypass details such as shelves and a door.

Our desk nook was born.

When I found the wallpaper, it seemed like a kiss from the angels. The world needed this desk nook. It was pre-destined. From the foundations of the earth.

It's the best decision we made about our house.

Our farm house had 1300 more square feet than this house, and I remember wondering where on earth we would keep the computer and, you know, work.

This is definitely one of the most used spaces in here. It's a great reminder to me that we don't always need new or more or bigger. Sometimes we just need to rethink what we already have. BOOM.

Voila. It's perfect.

Our old, beat-up desk slid right in.
(Now can you hear the angels???)

{Hey - this is one of my favorite new blog finds.}

Sidenote: Calvin made me an "actual" writing quill.

Many of the details have trudged with us from home to home...because although we've unloaded countless tens of twenties of boxes of things we no longer needed, I apparently couldn't envision a life without the red, defunct, entirely impractical stamper.

I won this ah-mazing Hellen Keller quote print a few years ago in a blog giveaway.You can get yours right here.

I plopped it in a thrifted frame. Gah. I love it so much.

The light came from Lowes.

Here's where things get weird.
Because I realized I wanted you to see the "nook" being an actual nook....so I pulled out the ol' point-and-shoot and took some sloppy, wider shots. So you can see it all in context.

We like context, right? It's good? Context??

You'll see the green entry table to the left, basement stairs to the right.

So wonky and so wrong.

Whatever.

See that odd corner of brown? That's our dining room table. I'm telling you, the quarters are close. But they work! They really work!

We have some weird support posts that interfere with lots of things like photography.
And walking.

One more, because why stop at 3 contextual poses?

I'm here to say, if you're short on living space, re-think one of your closets. It turns out, doors were made to be removed from their hinges.

Happy nooking!

-Shannan