What's next...

Well hello there.

After a nearly month long hiatus (where has the time gone?!) I'm stopping in for an update.

Brad and I have been doing a lot of thinking lately—discussing some important issues, making big decisions. One of these decisions is our housing situation.

We've been considering moving back to California to be closer to my family for quite some time. Visiting them once or twice a year really isn't enough... it's difficult. Very tough on my parents. But we love Florida... we love our friends, our home, the weather, places to go, cost of living... everything. We are happy here.

In the end, we decided to stay here for now.

With that decision comes sacrifice, however. My business is expanding, and our house isn't. We need more space.

As much as I'd love to start house hunting for the perfect new home with everything we need, it just wouldn't make sense for us to buy another house with our future living situation up in the air.

So we're working with what we've got—time to get creative. Here's the problem: I need a new printer. Not just a printer... but a printer:

My tiny office is already bursting at the seams, so there's absolutely no room for this 74" wide beast of a machine.

I suppose I could pay $700 a month and rent a studio somewhere for my office space, but that arrangement just isn't for me. There are times when things come up at night and I need to be at my printer to take care of rush orders, for example. I need to be able to easily access my equipment for my own sanity. And also, I just love being at home, and I worked hard to get here so I should be able to enjoy that freedom.

While racking my brain trying to come up with a solution, Brad suggested we switch our master bedroom and office spaces.

So this:

would become this:

and vice versa.

Sounds kinda crazy... especially considering our master closet and bathroom is attached to our room, but you gotta do what you gotta do, right?

Luckily, our master bedroom is just the right size to comfortably fit everything I need for the office.

Here's the plan:

Note: these aren't the exact proportions, it's just a visual representation.

One major thing lacking from my current office is desk space, especially since now I'll be printing my own posters.

I currently have three of these Vika desks from Ikea:

These are great, but unfortunately they don't have anything wider than 30". The solution? Get two of these longer ones and put them side by side:

I'll be covering the surface with a large cutting mat so it should be like having one seamless table top.

The two long desks will be sandwiched between two of my existing shorter desks, which will be up against the back wall. After measuring, there is just enough clearance (literally within an inch or so) for the desks to clear the doorway going into the bathroom. Whew.

On the opposite wall will be the printer. It will be where the TV and bench is now:

We're not sure yet if we'll be able to keep the TV... the printer comes just below it (within an inch or two) so it will be close. But I'd like to keep it if possible.

Then, on this wall will be storage:

Don't mind the old photo when I was painting the dresser, this is just the best one I could find that shows the whole wall.

For my storage solution, I decided upon three of these Vittsjo shelving units from Ikea:

Except I would love to transform it into something that better fits the style of the room, like Kate did:

The dimensions are perfect for all of my supplies (don't you love when that happens?) and the price is right, so I'm excited about getting to work on that one.

As for the rest of my existing office setup, I'll still be hanging my wall cabinet above my desks on the back wall, and these shelf ledges will be next to it:

Of course I'll still need a rug, and I'll figure out all the rest of the details as I go along. Can you start to visualize it yet?

Let's move on to our new bedroom.

Yep... this one is going to be cramped with our King bed—or as I like to think of it, "cozy". Cottage Cozy is the decided theme, and I am definitely the most excited about this room.

Here's my inspiration:

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Notice anything absent from these photos? 

Turquoise.

Yep, I'm stepping out of my color bubble and trying something new: navy. Less beach house cottage, more lake house cabin, if you will. 

The walls will be a nice medium gray, something along the lines of this:

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And, my favorite part, something I've been dying to do for a long time now...

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A plank wall! It will be an accent wall behind the bed and the focal point in the room.

I'm also going to have to figure out what to do with this closet...

I won't need it for any of my office supplies, and we already have a walk in for all of our clothing, so I'll have to figure out something to store in there. The pistachio green paint will also be replaced with a deeper gray, and I'm thinking navy and white striped curtains.

To introduce more navy into the room, I'm looking into new bedding and pillow options. We will be keeping the jute rug that's currently under our bed since it's a perfect fit, and it will also tie into the natural bamboo roman window shade:

Speaking of that window, it's basic builder grade right now framed in drywall, so I want to add some character with crisp white trim. And on that note... I'd like to try an alternative crown molding technique that doesn't require any sort of crazy cuts. Molding and trim just really transform a room and makes it look finished, don't you agree?

On the window wall where the file cabinet is, I was thinking a simple black and white square gallery wall would look nice:

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I have an idea in mind to accomplish this very inexpensively... so we'll see how it goes!

That's about as far as I've thought it through for now. I'm sure I'll find more ideas/inspiration as I go along. 

This seems like quite a lot to tackle, but we're going to have to get all of the prep, paint, trim and panel wall in our new bedroom completed as quickly as possible so I can get my office space set back up without a delay in my workflow. 

Luckily, my little sister is flying in and staying with us for a couple weeks in early March, so I'll have some extra help. It will be a fun bonding experience ;)

I'm road tripping to Ikea within the next few days to collect all of my materials, and then it's game on.

I'll check back in as soon as progress is made!