The Purge Part 6: FINISHED!

Catch up:

The Purge Project: An Introduction

The Purge Project Part 1: The Tiny Closet

The Purge Project Part 2: The Hot Mess Express

The Purge Project Part 3: De-cluttering and Organizing 

The Purge Project Part 4: Office Makeover Plans

The Purge Part 5: Gettin' Rid of the Green Weekend

Three months later and my office is finally finished. 

The last step was making pillow cases to cover all of these pillows from the thrift store:

Okay, I get that some of you are probably like, "Ew, thrift store pillows." Well get over yourselves. I sprayed them with Lysol and kept them in garbage bags for three weeks, mkay? I've been trying to do this room makeover as cheaply as possible and that bed full of pillows only cost forty bucks. Did you know new throw pillows can cost almost twenty bucks each? 

The daybed I was trying to cover with pillows is the IKEA Hemnes daybed. It pulls out into a king size bed, so now my office can also serve as a guest bedroom. I got it on Craigslist for a hundred bucks and it's not broken or anything. The nice couple selling it just needed to make room in their house because they recently had another kid. SCORE!

Earlier this month, I ventured to IKEA to get a new desk, chair, shelf, and a few other ditties. Unlike the first time I went to IKEA, where I spent almost four hours wandering around and bought a cart full of fun organizational odds and ends that I just HAD to have but ended up selling in a garage sale, this trip was planned out and organized. I had a list. I was in and out in an hour and half-- I had to stop and look at the gallery, because IKEA.

I left with only one cart and spent under $200. DOUBLE SCORE.

Back to the last step-- the pillowcases. 

I don't know how to use a sewing machine, so one of my favorite ladies of all time put aside a few hours on Sunday to work with me. We finished all of the pillowcases and now I can use a sewing machine-- for straight lines, at least. The pattern for the pillowcases is from A Curiously Chic Life and it was SO easy. I am not very good at measuring fabric, but I think I was just getting tired after the eighth slipcover. It has nothing to do with me telling myself for my whole life that I can't do math. Special thanks to my BFF A.J. for being a great (and patient) teacher! 

The Reveal
The room is very small, so I couldn't photograph the it as a whole. 

The collages below are the best I can do. 

Now, can I get a drumroll please? 

I can hardly believe I have kept this space so clean for three months. 

Presenting each wall of my office: Before, during, and after. 

I am in love with the look of the daybed and the huge storage drawers underneath. When I was little I always wanted a reading nook and now I have created it!  The gray is calming and putting lamps in the room has made the lighting less harsh. The pictures hanging above the daybed look crooked in this picture, but I just turned around to look at them and they're not, I swear. I'd still like a gallery wall above the daybed someday. I was just driving myself crazy with how to do it, so three aquatic-themed pictures in a row it is.

 The desk, the chair, the white, the string of pictures, the magnetic board! I love it all!

 The closet is finished and the Hubs found a way to make even more space for storage and books on top. It's so nice to have a curtain (thanks Nikki!) covering the clothes, although I will say that the clothes inside of the closet are nicely organized thanks to Aldi's $5.99 deal of the week:

Continuing on...

When I first started planning this makeover, I wanted a work space, a closet, a place for all of the books, and a space for reading. Figuring out how to put everything in this room the way I wanted was like Tetris. I got rid of as many books as I could, but hey-- I'm a former English teacher and wannabe academic. I'm always going to have a lot of books. I love the look of the Radiohead posters with the purple and the shelf looks nice against that wall too. 

 This shadowbox (sitting on top of the bookshelf) is one of my new favorite things:

If I pick it up and shake it around I get a whole new view of ticket stubs. Nice.

It feels SO good to have another room in the house. It had been a junk room the whole six years we've lived here... until now! It's my Jen Den. Nope, that isn't a good name for it. I'll get back to you guys on that.

It's my office and I love it. I can even sit on the floor with the dogs and stretch my legs out without hitting any junk. 

I will probably have to work on recovering from my life as a clothing and junk hoarder for a little while, but I think I'll survive. Now, not to get all motivational on you or anything, but what's that thing you've been wanting to do/clean/finish that you haven't? Go do it! I'll be your biggest fan.