An Organized Office Tour (and a Dining Room Sneak Peek)

Take a tour of our organized home office space, complete with tips on storing supplies, eliminating clutter, and decorating with inexpensive/functional supplies!

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Today, I thought I’d give you guys a peek into where the magic happens…the Lamberts Lately magic, that is! 😉

When we started designing our new home, we absolutely knew that we had to have a home office.  It wasn’t even a question.  Not only do I work at home, but Noah often has to work at night a few times a week.  We desperately needed a space to organize our office supplies and sneak away from the kids when we needed work time.  Before we moved, I was having to go to Starbucks a couple of nights a week just to be able to work – so I think adding this onto our floor plan actually saved us money! 🙂

This area was a formal living room in the original floor plan – but, as we modified the plan (over, and over, and over), it was obvious that we had zero need for a formal living room.  We made the dining room a little bigger, making this area smaller, and added the built-ins to make this an office space.  It’s probably the best-used square footage in our whole home!

I wanted to make sure the area was organized from the get-go.  We set up a system in this room almost immediately that still works for us.

Welcome to our office!  I showed you guys the latest upgrade we made to the space last week – the plantation shutters make such a huge statement in this space.

I am a massive fan of pocket doors…we have them throughout the house.  They were an obvious choice for sectioning off the office and dining room space – that way, we have some privacy while trying to work and, on the flip side, we don’t have to look at office supplies while eating dinner.

Most of the storage for our office space is on either side of the doors in large cabinets.

Because they’re really the reason I have this office in the first place, I decided to display each ebook I’ve published so far – 3 editions of Journey to Clean and 10 editions of Freezer Meal Boot Camp (and still growing!).  They’re just in simple Dollar Tree frames – I love how this inexpensive project turned out!  These are a great option if you have a lot of things to frame for a gallery wall – you absolutely wouldn’t know they were a dollar each.

And guys – I honestly couldn’t tell you how long I’ve had these two organizers (similar here).  Since college maybe?  I’m pretty sure they were in my room at the sorority house.  They’ve been in a few different rooms throughout the years, but most recently, they’ve held my sewing/craft supplies.  Everything from paint, to ribbon, to sewing machine tools are in these!  I’ve also got an inexpensive Dollar Tree storage bin holding some of my longer ribbon and poster board to the left.

I often will need different colorful notebooks for printable shoots…I store them here, since they’re so pretty filed together!

Noah’s first Father’s Day gift from 2012 and a picture of teeny tiny baby Emmie (and very swollen postpartum Leslie).

Let’s peek into that first set of cabinets!

Yet another project my cabinet maker hit out of the park.  I showed him a picture of a printer drawer I loved and he totally made it happen!  This kind of extends the desk area and eliminates the need for storing the printer out where everyone can see.  Below that, I store an extra laser printer I need for some projects and paper/shipping supplies.

Above that is kind of an office catch-all.  We have old electronics, lots and lots of cords (that’s after purging a lot of unneeded ones too – yikes), batteries, and little surprises for the kids stored in here.  There are also chargers and old memory cards/video tapes stored in those small baskets in the front.  All storage baskets are from Dollar Tree (of course!).

Up top is a storage area for basically anything tall – extra frames, my paper cutter, extra folders, and a huge collection of stationery.

Moving on to the other side of the office…everything is symmetrical, so you’ll see that the layout is the same, just utilized a different way!

I wanted a cute way to store the wrapping paper I use as backdrops for printable pictures, and this was such an easy (and inexpensive) solution.  These are just cheap lockseam curtain rods (they were under a dollar each at Walmart) mounted to the wall.  They pop out really easy whenever I need to use the paper, but are secure to the wall when I need it out of the way.  Plus, it’s kind of pretty I think!

These wicker baskets were originally in my classroom, but now serve as kind of a pretty junk catching space in the office.  They came from Hobby Lobby years and years ago.  I still have my beloved Xacto pencil sharpener from my teaching days (comes in really handy when you have kids in school) and random office supplies, like paper clips and staples, are in that drawer organizer.

Another piece of vertical storage I love is this super simple command hook that holds my rulers!

In the cabinets to the left, I have a mix of sewing/craft and paper storage.  I’ve mentioned before that we don’t save a lot of papers, but most of the ones we do save are in this cabinet.

In the bottom cabinet, I have my leftover fabric and sewing machine, as well as a big box of random craft/scrapbooking supplies and a box from our wedding I just can’t let go of. 😉 It has napkins, stationery, newspaper clippings…for some reason I just can’t throw any of it away!

The top cabinet is mostly paper storage.  The organizer on the bottom holds coupons, gift cards, and other paper things we might need but can’t scan into Evernote.  We also have a lot of our home building stuff on that shelf – mostly owners manuals for appliances, tags from our landscaping…just a general pile of papers we have to reference every now and then.

On the middle shelf, I have a plastic shoe box for each member of the family (and one just general one) for special cards and mementos I’ve saved over the years.  Things like birthday cards, sweet notes, pictures, etc. go in these boxes.  When I clean out our command center once a month, I typically only save the things that go in this box and school papers (those go in another storage area in the house).  I have them labeled with the same tape trick I used in the pantry!

The top shelf has a few other important papers we have to keep around.

We have a huge desk area in this office!  It’s great for really spreading out work.

There are just two drawers, so we keep the essentials in these.  Paper and card stock is in one…

…and essential office supplies that we use often are in the other.  The smaller items are corralled with Dollar Tree pencil baskets.

And that’s our office!  It’s a small space, but inch for inch, it’s by far the most used space in our home.

Office Sources:

Chair

Lamps (from a set at Lowe’s years and years ago, similar here)

Storage Baskets: Dollar Tree

Plantation Shutters from Select Blinds

Wall Color: Amazing Gray by Sherwin WIlliams

Cabinet Color: Popular Gray by Sherwin Williams

 

Since it’s right off the dining room, I thought I’d give a little peek into how that space is coming along too!

Really, I’d say the dining room is almost finished.  I’d love to find something for the walls, we just haven’t made up our minds what we want yet.  Noah likes a blank wall…I like it nice and filled up.  So we’re currently working out some kind of compromise in that department.  I asked for suggestions on Instagram a couple of weeks ago and got some great responses – I love the idea of a mirror, baskets, or even ceiling medallions on that wall!

I’d also like some kind of hutch/buffet to go over to the left of this picture, but finding one that’s thin enough to fit in what has become a walking path is a little bit of a challenge.  And those chairs – the chairs baffle me.  I definitely want something different, I just don’t know what.  I’ve had these chair slipcovers on my Amazon wish list for months, but just haven’t been able to pull the trigger.

You can see the kitchen through that walkway – there’s a butler’s pantry that we’ve absolutely loved and our hallway in between the two.  It really is a great flow!

One of the first things we bought for the dining room was this rug – and I absolutely love it.  We get compliments on it from everybody that comes over.  It’s so pretty in person!

Dining Room Sources:

Rug

Table (I wish I knew – we bought it at a discount store and it didn’t have a tag or label.)

Chandelier

Table Runner

LED candles (so much more convenient!)

Lanterns (mix of discontinued from Target, antique, and Hobby Lobby)

Paint: Amazing Gray by Sherwin Williams

Flooring: Artisan Mills Majestic Oak LVP