office | Operation Home

So, you’ve seen some of the progress happening in our front room here and here. But, what I haven’t yet described is our plan to turn this bifunctional room into one of trifunction.

At first, our front room was just an office. See here…

Then we adopted Fri (the Ikea Friheten corner sofa), so we moved our desk to the opposite wall and plopped Fri down in his new home. Thus, our office became an office/guest room. Check it…

Here he is touting his accommodating nature…

Pretty cool, huh? And he provides storage to boot…

You should’ve seen me playing with this thing in the store. I had a ball. And I received more than a few puzzled stares in response to my squeals of glee. It was fun.

Anyhoo, our next plan was to eventually purchase a larger flat screen TV to replace our computer monitor, which we would then mount to the wall with a swiveling bracket. This would allow us to use the TV as both a computer monitor AND movie-watching device. We are all about multi-function in this house. Thus, the room would become an office/guest room/extra living/movie room of sorts, which we figured would come in really handy as Lucas grows older.

A few days ago, we were fortunate enough to inherit a free flat screen TV that our family was getting rid of. It was a bit larger than we were originally thinking, but we thought it would still serve it’s purpose well. Observe…

Wee bit of an upgrade, no? When I first saw its gigantic size in comparison to our last monitor, I actually laughed out loud. It was just so much bigger than our last screen. And for some reason I found that humorous. Maybe I was just overwhelmed at the prospect of being able to see the screen sans glasses.

Anyways, I sat down in my beloved desk chair, powered on the screen, and discovered that my loving husband had left me a little surprise…..

After a significant recoil from the screen, I regrouped, looked for the hidden camera, found none, and responded with this….

After Joey found my response (and laughed), I changed my snarky mug for my all-time favorite Lucas pic…

Sweet, sweet boy.

Anyways, I digress… moving back to the project…. We picked up this swivel bracket from Walmart…

….and Joey installed it per the included instructions. It all went to plan easily, except that we had limited choice as to bracket placement due to the available studs and the way the bracket swivels. The TV is slightly off centered with the desk because of this, but ended up right in front of our chair which was serendipitous. Here’s a shot from above in the back…

See, the bracket is actually mounted in a more centered location, but for the TV to remain flat against the wall, it slides over to the left (facing) causing it to be off-center. Then, to swivel it out and angle it to watch TV from the couch, we need the space on the right-facing side. So, this was the only logical placement. But, dont get us wrong, being a smidge off-centered is a small price to pay for the function of enjoying a glare-less movie-watching experience.

Another small issue is that we will have to move the light switch over, as it’s now located behind the TV (but still reachable). We always hated that the switch is practically in the middle of the wall anyways.

So, now we have easier-to-see computer time…

And gloriously glare-free movie (ahem, Dexter) time…

So anyways, that’s our newly tri-functional space! Popcorn, anyone? 🙂

…..for a chair like youuuuuu!!!! I know, Facebook friends, I totally ripped this title off of a recent status that I posted. I just love this darn chair so much I thought it deserved an encore.

So, here’s the deal…. I was innocently chatting on the phone with a friend as I casually meandered down the aisles of our local Goodwill when, BAM!!! I rounded the corner and was smacked in the face by this puppy.

I let out an audible gasp as cheesy ’80s love songs raced through my head. Mid-century modern. Clerical-chic. In great condition. And twenty bucks!!! Mine. He’s mine. I thought he was so fantastic that I couldn’t even wait until I got him into the car to snap another pic….

Yes. Sad. I know.

So, I got him home, wiped him down with a damp rag, followed by a damp magic eraser to take off all the grime (he was pretty dirty) and took inventory. He was missing glides on the bottom of two legs, which I replaced using these (found at Home depot for less than 2 bucks).

I simply tapped them into the existing holes on the chair legs using a rubber mallet. Then, to cover up the small nicks and a few areas where the finish had been worn down on the wood, I used this amazing stuff….

You simply rub it on with a clean rag (I treated the entire wood surface) and wipe it off immediately. It’s kind of fumey, so be sure to work in a well-ventilated area – I did this in our garage with the door open. Wait 30 minutes, then follow it up with this…

It adds moisture and shine to the wood like nobody’s business. You just wipe it on. Wait 20 minutes, and wipe off the excess. That’s it. Easy peasy.

The vinyl cushions were in great shape aside from a few rubbed-down, faded areas on the underneath corners of the arm rests. I just wiped on a little leather conditioner on those small areas to give them some life. Note: Im not sure if Im supposed to use leather conditioner on vinyl, but I figured it was worth a shot since I already had it on hand. I didn’t use it on the entire cushion for fear that it would be greasy and stain our clothes when we sat down. The areas I did use it on, however, perked right up and blended in great with the rest of the cushion.

Now I’ll tell ya, I did have one fear regarding this chair. In the store (and outside), the cushions looked very purple. We have little to no purple in the house and I felt that recovering the cushions would take away from the chair’s character. So, at this point I had decided that if the chair didn’t work in our house, I would sell it, intact, on Craigslist (hopefully to someone who would love it as much as I do). But alas, my fears were unfounded. As soon as I placed the chair in the office, the cushions took on much less of a purple hue and appeared much more burgundy, which worked great in the room. Its amazing how different lighting affects color. It also goes to show that you don’t know if an item will work until you actually try it in a room. I’m a big proponent of buying, trying and returning if it doesn’t work for this very reason.

Take a look at the shined up finished product…

I just love the quality and look of the wood. All of the details in construction. Plus, he’s comfy to sit in and reeks of character. And another glimpse of our office area…