A new place to waste time

My husband's birthday is coming up (in just three weeks!) and his gift has pushed us to do a little changing around in our office.

He's getting a new computer (he knows already because god knows I wouldn't know what he needed), but his current one works fine for a lot of stuff.  He plays graphics heavy games on there, and the video card (?) is too slow for that.  But for me, for websurfing, editing photos, and music and movies, it will be perfect.

But there's a problem.  Our office is pretty small, and more than that it has very little wall space.  The main problem is that we have a 1.5 story house, and the eaves upstairs drive us crazy.  So two walls are only four or so feet high with eaves.  And the other two are limited because of a window and two doors.

Apparently I haven't taken that many pictures of the room, and not even our AWESOME mid century desk which is probably in my top two favorite furniture pieces we own.  But here's a rough idea.

When you're standing in the door, Brett's desk and computer are immediately to the left.  His new one will have better cooling, so I'm really hoping we can get rid of that nightstand that holds his old computer up off the floor.

I made those curtains.  I love them.  Probably too much.

We now have a greige/taupe settee in front of the window.  This both tones down the curtains, and gives me a place to sit and hang out with Brett while he's on the computer.  I take my laptop up there and hangout a lot.  Also, since I've taken this picture I've learned to love the camelback, so I don't drape the blanket over it anymore.

This post is reminding me that we seriously need to start thrifting again.  The desk was only $40, and the settee I believe was $75.  It's in amazing shape too, with little brass casters on the feet and gorgeous upholstery that's almost a linen.

One the wall to the right, we have Ribba bookshelves wall to wall.  Those transformers have given way to our Lego collection, which is pretty much taking over at this point.

I absolutely love these book cases.  They really add something to the room.  I'm sad we'll probably have to leave them behind when we move.  I love to style them, but we're approaching capacity so I'm limited on the room I have to play with.

We also have posters around the room.  Three concert posters (Janis Joplin, Johnny Cash, and possibly the Doors?).  And we also have this nerdy print that I got my husband for Valentine's Day last year.

Yep, that's a Lego dude trying on different heads.

The last wall is taken up by the door into the hallway and the close door.  In between there's a space of about three feet where we have an old, cheap TV stand from Wal-Mart that I bought when I lived by myself in college.  This is the only picture I have.  Again, we're a couple of nerds.

But that sucker is going, and that's where my desk is going to be.  Yay!

Like I said, the space is only 3 feet wide (a few inches more if you count the door moldings.  So I'm working with limited space here.  Ideally, I'd like my desk to be pretty clean and not have a bunch of stuff on it.  So since the desk will be small anyway, and we want to use this as a place to watch shows and movies, we decided to mount it on the wall.

I decided to get a 24" LED monitor from Amazon, partially funded by my Christmas gift card.  I also got a nifty little mount that pivots and swings out, so Brett can watch from his desk if he wants.

I looked all over for desks, and found a few options at Crate and Barrel, but they were a little more than I wanted to spend.  I even looked at small space dining tables.  But I kept coming back to a Parsons mini desk.

It's a nice deal at $199, but I had $25 in WE Design Dollars, plus a coupon code for doing some market research for them.  So that brought it down to a bit over $150.  It has good reviews and I love the look, so I pulled the trigger.  I'm really psyched to style it!

Now, I just have to get a chair (and convince Brett to let me buy him a new one).  I thought it would be neat if he had a white leather chair and I had a wooden chair.  I'm not going to be spending hours at this desk so I'm not worried about ergonomics for me.

I wanted this one for $100, but it's on backorder until almost April.  You can buy a set of two now, but not a single chair.  Why?

I would love to have an Eames shell chair, either in black or in a fun color.  I hesitate to buy a knock-off, but $400 for a side chair just is not going to happen.

I can get a knockoff in black for $120.  I just don't know yet what I want.  I have a little time to figure it out, though.

For not, I'm looking at pictures of small workplaces and dreaming.  So pretty!  but where's the computer?