Room Reveal: Front Hallway 'Cloffice'

Some of you may remember, but last November...I believe it was the 5th or 6th...straight up MAYHEM hit our house. It was all self-inflicted...Josh would say 95% by moi. We re-roofed our house, tore up carpet, tore out all the linoleum, went on a week-long resort vaca, hosted Thanksgiving, made a baby, decorated for Christmas, hosted our annual Christmas party, then found out we were pregnant on Christmas Day...all while our house was TORN APART and beyond stressful for this Type A, organized little freak show (me).

Anyway, this mayhem I'm describing lasted (in varying degrees) until this past Sunday when I was FINALLY to finish my last 'THIS WILL BE DONE BEFORE WE HAVE A BABY SO HELP ME GOD' project...THE CLOFFICE.

I should point out...again...when we bought our house everything was white on white on white on CARPET. It was too much to handle as a first-time homeowner at the age of 21. My first instinct to combat this stark white ranch house was to paint A LOT OF COLOR on ANYTHING I COULD. Which is precisely why I had a lime green feature wall, front closet, and front door.

Lime green to light gray. Painting this closet was truly a nightmare.

Dear everyone...please forgive me for these lime green sins I committed. I hope with this blog post you will find that I have MORE than paid for my choice of wall-color-sins and hope you accept my sincerest apology.

Moving on...I believe it was in the spring of 2012 that I had the bright idea to move our computer and 'office' into our front hallway closet. That isn't sarcasm...it really was a great idea, somewhat Pinterest inspired but 85% my brainchild since I had barely started Pinteresting at that point. Before the laundry room was turned into a guest room, I mentioned in this blog that it was just a big waste of space. We had a corner-desk set up with a computer and a big room that wasn't being used for much. And since we don't use our front hallway entrance as a main entrance to our house, this closet just basically housed a lot of clutter and some cleaning supplies...which I promptly either got rid of, or found a new 'like things together' home for the stuff to live.

This is what the cloffice looked like for the past three-ish years.

Josh actually cut off the ends of this table and re-built it inside the closet, on an afternoon which he affectionately refers to as, 'the worst afternoon project of my life.' AHHH but why focus on that...we had a new space for our office AND a guest bedroom with a double bed. It was a win win, even though it cost him a frustrating afternoon. ;) I'm prepared to stay in this house until we're ready to build our dream home, so re-inventing and re-imagining is required in order to make that happen. So the cloffice was born.

Like I said, Josh RE-BUILT this desk/table inside the closet. So when it came time to tear up the flooring, and lay tile...we had a bit of a problem. For a few months the desk was hiked up using ratchet ropes...then it was set back down...but I was waiting to truly put everything back together until I'd gotten rid of the lime green. It just didn't make sense anymore with the green erased from the living room and the front door. Plus it made the office-space really dark and I wanted the hallway to seem lighter and brighter.

During that time the computer space moved from the living room coffee table, to the buffet, to the dining room table. All terrible, horrible stressful places to have a computer for this Type A organized little freak show (again..me).

So on Sunday...with the cloffice freshly painted light gray with TWO coats of paint...paint on the shelves and on the desk...I was able to put the storage bins, the computer, and the decor all back. AFTER NINE MONTHS OF MAYHEM YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW GOOD IT FEELS TO HAVE THIS STUPID CLOFFICE PUT BACK TOGETHER. YOU HAVE NO IDEA.

A glance at the hallway.

Sooo much brighter now!!! Lots of storage, less clutter on the desktop, and still a hint of vintage charm. :)

This has nothing to do with the cloffice, but it was a project I forced on myself last week because decorating around ugly vents is something I am TIRED of doing. So now they're all painted the same color as the wall. Trim is coming btw...so just...ignore that, ok?

This little cutie showed up a few weeks ago and it actually fits perfectly in this corner of our living room. We have the matching high chair because...God Bless Graco for making SOMETHING in a neutral, black, gray, and tan color scheme.

There's the official cloffice room reveal. Not much to it. Four black Target storage bins, an extension cord, a table I pulled out of a dumpster, painted and had my husband build into this closet, and a desktop computer. A few headaches, but overall pretty easy. And so worth it to use the spaces in our house in a smarter way.

MmB