A Space to Call Her Own

Today I have a surprise addition to our dining room to share with you all.  We added another small desk space next to the cabinet!

This change came about kind of suddenly, and simultaneously fixes two problems we were having in the apartment.  First, Melissa wanted her own desk space, where she could work on homework and store all her books and stuff (previously stored on bookcases throughout the apartment).  We were playing around with rearranging the furniture to add it to the living room, when I remembered the bare wall space in the dining room, which brings us to the second problem.

Ever since we added the cabinet a little over a month ago, that wall had been bothering me.  The cabinet looked so tall and lonely, I knew that wall needed something to fill it up and balance it out.  My ideas were focused on adding art around the cabinet, but I never fell in love with anything.

I decided to take my own advice and add a small desk area to the unused space.  The new desk perfectly fills the rest of the wall, while also visually 'shortening' the tall look of the cabinet.

Before this desk, Melissa didn't really have any designated space that was just hers.  I have my desk, and my dressing table, and most of the bookcases are filled with my stuff.  Now, Melissa has her own little office space to study and do work at.

To make it really feel like her space, I added a few decorative touches.  Since Melissa has been sailing her whole life, I added a "Keep Calm and Sail On" print (found here) I got her for her birthday, and a tiny thrift store metal sailboat.

Melissa isn't as enamored with the organizational process as I am.  So to keep her desk space neat and tidy, we put a desk top organizer to store pens, post-its and whatever else she needs available and at hand.  This way (hopefully) office supplies wont be strewn across the desk top.

We have a lot of plans for the future of the desk in mind.  We are definitely going to be making good use of the wall space above the desk.  I'm thinking a couple staggered shelves, paired with some sort of cork board or dry erase board.

We still need to find her a chair, but for now we've just pulled over an extra one from our dining table.  I think the new chair will be a nice opportunity to bring in a pop of fun and color.  I'll be sure to share what we end up picking.  For now, Dakota was a happy little photo-bomber on the temp chair.

We had originally planned on finding a thrift store desk and fixing it up.  But after a day of unsuccessful searching (everything we found was either way not our style or way too expensive) we decided to head over to our always reliable Target.  I don't know about you, but Target always has exactly what I need.  And at $130 for a brand new desk, we were sold.  (This desk is now on clearance for $101, so we're planning to take our receipt back to the store and get the $30 refunded - they do that!).

So what do you think?  I love that we were able to fill up that space, as well as add a space for Melissa to call her own.  It is now her unofficial, apartment-style "man-cave".  I can't wait to get this space all decked out in shelves and some (minimal - as instructed by Melissa) decor.  It's going to look great!

For those of you who live with a significant other, do you each get your own 'personal space' to call your own?  Who else loves the kill-two-birds-with-one-stone solution to multiple problems?  Anyone else add any extra office spaces to their homes recently?