How to protect a timber floor?

MrB's bench press has been in the alfresco for months ... as he has already filled up his detached garage with cars... and there is no way I am letting him put it in any of the spare bedrooms since I am trying to eaven out the floor colour ...

Do any of you have gym equipment or weights on timber floor? If so, what have you got in between in order to protect your floor?

I've been looking at amazon.com and although there are a few options such as rubber tiles and mats, I am not sold on their looks as they will be taking up a portion of our home office/study :(

Amazon.com

B

Home office progress ...

So this is as far as I got with our home office. Disappointing, I know :(

I am once again second guessing my decisions and am wondering if I should stick with my original idea of floating shelves above the computer desk, or if I should perhaps go with some art work instead? What do you think? 

Also, we originally planned to have the computer desk closer to the window, which is why we put the power points more to that side. I've now moved the desk so it is in the centre of the wall, but the problem now is that the two power points on the right now stick out. Do you think this is a biggie? Would you rather have power points on the right of the desk or have the desk of centre?

Please excuse the modem. It will eventually be hidden in the cinema built in unit but for now it will have to stay here.

I would love to hear your suggestions as to how to pretty up the desk? I recently bought a small fish bowl vase, would that work, with some flowers in it of course? Also, where can I buy pretty mouse pads?

You can see here how the power points stick out ...

Any ideas on how to conceal the cables?

Bulkhead all around the room

B

Making the most of Expedits in our Home office/gym

The door of our home office/gym faces North and the window faces West. The computer desk has to be along the wall where the door is as that's where all the computer/telephone/internet etc access points are.

We've got a couple of Ikea Expedit bookcases and I would love to hear your suggestions as to where they would look best... I've come up with some possibilities but would love to hear your suggestions as always :)

• An Expedit on either side of the computer desk - although I would love the symmetry of this... I am unsure of spending so much effort on something which won't be seen from the door *shy*
• An Expedit on either side of the window - some of it will be seen from the door, but the fit will be tight
• Both Expedits along the North facing wall 
• An Expedit along the North facing wall and another one along the wall where the door is (next to the desk)

Some more info:

• The room is 4.3m long and 3m wide
• The ceiling is 2.7m high
• 300x300 bulkheads all around
• The window is 2.4m high (goes all the way to the bulkhead)

An Expedit on either side of the window

An expedit on either side of the desk

What do you think?

B

Having second thoughts about floating shelves...

Thank you all so much for your feedback and comments on my previous post about our home office.

Having thought about it further …I am now having second thoughts about floating shelves :(

The desk has to stay where it is :( because of the Internet/C-bus points that are already in place...

I have never been about pretty homely things before… and have never had anything decorated/prettified before… so being the first room to get done this is a big deal to me *shy*.

So, because I want to make the desk and the area around it pretty… I would like to show it off… to both myself and my guests (without having to drag them to the other side of the room) *shy*. I just wish it was visible from the door…

The reason why I put the internet point (as well as all other C-bus points) along the wall where I’ve placed the desk is because I wanted to give privacy to whoever is using the computer… but now I am begging to regret this… because if we go ahead with the home office/gym plan, the first thing you will see when you walk inside the room will be gym equipment :(

Although nothing spectacular (but to me is a big deal as mentioned before) this is what I imagined the desk/above desk area being prettified by: Ikea frams with cute prints, colourful storage boxes etc...

Here is the window, door layout for the room as well as its dimensions. Also, not that it makes any difference, but there are bulkheads all around the room.

Am I making a big deal out of nothing? I mean it's not like any of our friends/family members would care or get the pretty things anyway ...

B