When our second second son was born, Steph started getting up to work at 5 a.m. Totally insane, but it allowed her the time and privacy she needed to meet her book deadlines. It continued to work, until son #2, “Bam-Bam”, decided he wanted to go visit Mom at this early hour every day. With her desk right in the middle of our family room, it was too easy for him to find and distract her. After about two weeks of this (along with failed rewards plans and sticker incentives) the problem became clear. He was interrupting Mommy because she hadn’t established any boundaries.
When Aaron started working at home, we built an office for him and made an dysfunctional pass-through space into something that worked. When the kids were younger, Steph wanted to be around them–more for their safety than anything else. Now that they were older and more self-sufficient, a little separation was needed.
The only problem was, we were packed to the gills. Unless we split up our nice-sized family room and made another room, which we did not want to do, we had no place to set up an office for Steph. That’s when she went onto Pinterest. They had a “closet office” board. That’s the moment our thinking about where we could put an office changed completely. We started paying attention to our downstairs pantry. But after measuring, we realized, it was only 22 square feet.
Would It work? Would Steph feel claustrophobic?
She tried it out for a few days. We had a small kid’s desk that fit into the space. Even though it was kind of comical for her to work at it, one thing became clear. The privacy became invaluable. Plus, the kids didn’t bug her with the door shut. It would work. We then started looking into how we could create an awesome office for as little money as possible.
The Paint ($0)
The paint was the first hurdle. We wanted to use something we already had. Fortunately, there was a stack in the garage. The next challenge was making sure we picked a zero VOC color. If we didn’t, the fumes would take forever to clear out of such a small space. When we sorted through everything, that left Steph with about 6 different color choices. She went with an ocean blue and a pale grey. We alternated colors on the walls so the space wouldn’t seem too closed off.
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The Floor ($43)
Next, we had to pick some flooring for the space. We initially considered laminate, but the new office would be in the basement family room and would involve putting in a sub floor. So, keeping with our original goal of building the office as cheaply as possible, Steph chose plan flooring. She discovered a style she liked from Allure. One box offered 22.5 sq. feet for around $43. Steph made the purchase, but the tension built immediately (how appropriate for a writer’s office). Would there be enough?
Steph, who once aced an elementary school test on spacial relations, swore it would. Aaron wasn’t so sure.
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While there was alot of swearing, Steph won that bet. Aaron had just enough to cover the floor. Plus, we stayed on budget.
The Baseboard ($22)
After the floor install, we added in a wide baseboard. Aaron picked up primed pieces from Home Depot.
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The Desk ($105)
The desk was tougher. The wall Steph wanted to use was only 47.5 inches wide. It would have been easy to find one around that width that fit, but in such a small space, Steph needed every inch she could get, plus a keyboard tray. This slick desk from Sauder came in at just over 47 inches and it just fit!
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Motivational Wall Decal ($17)
Steph realized that, for the first time in her adult life, she had a room of her own. She wanted to take ownership of it. By using the design tools at Signs.com, Steph created her own, vinyl wall decal. Coupons and fast shipping made the whole process super-easy. Here’s the final result!
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Other Things We Already Had
There were definitely some things missing from the space, but we were able to fill them in using other things we had around the house.
- IKEA shelves
- Lamp
- IKEA wall file folder unit
- Black storage unit with baskets
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The Budget Breakdown
Here’s how it all worked out:
- Paint $ 0
- Flooring $43
- Baseboard $22
- Desk $105
- Decal $17
Also, Aaron charged $12 plus a sandwich for labor. That brings our total to….
$199
Yay! We hope you enjoyed this post on how we made Steph an office out of nothing at all for under $200! Got ideas on how to do the same? Post them in the comments below. Until next time, nerds!
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