Small Updates in the Office

So I'm back today with another little update on the office.  We're still trying to figure out the furniture layout in most rooms, so we're currently pretty much in the stage of moving things around until something clicks.  As far as the office goes, we were still trying to figure out what to put next to Melissa's desk and under the window.  We had originally thought about getting some sort of additional surface or storage to put along the bottom of the window, but that just isn't in the budget at this point.

So we are pretty much working with what we have at this point.  We decided to slide Melissa's bookcase over into that little corner to see how we liked it.  And so far, I think things will stay this way for a while.  It fills up the space nicely, so it's not a dark, empty corner waiting to be filled with clutter.

We're still trying to figure out what exactly to do with the printer, since now it just kind of blocks the path to the bookcase.  We're not sure where it will end up, but it definitely will not be staying where it is for the long haul.  We've been thinking about trying to move it into one of the closets once we get them all furnished and set up.  The only problem with that plan is figuring out how to keep it plugged in, since there are no outlets inside the closet.  Boo.

Before we moved the bookshelf to its new home, it was living in Melissa's closet.  But we have since come up with some majorly awesome long term closet plans that we want to start preparing for.  That involved getting the bookcase out of the closet, and into another spot in the room.  So this little move really killed two birds.  We're again not sure if this will last forever, or if we'll replace the bookcase with something else down the line, but for now, it works perfectly.

We also took this mini-update opportunity to finally put some holes in our walls and get a couple things hung up.  Melissa picked up this whiteboard calendar for above her desk way back when we lived in the old place.  She got it in anticipation of having an office in the new apartment, and we finally got to get it up on the wall and get some function going on.

We also picked up this shelf on a recent trip to IKEA.  We really liked the mix of the modern metallic brackets holding the semi-floating white shelf.  The white of the shelf matches the drawers of Melissa's desk, while the metallic finish brings in some of the more modern, masculine feeling that Melissa is going for with her side of the office.

And she is super thrilled to finally have a place to get some of her decorative items up off her work space.  One of the things Melissa was most excited about with our new apartment was having her own space in the office to put all her boat and map paraphernalia.  She still has lots more, but she's happy to have at least some of it out and displayed.

We have been playing around with getting a few more of those shelves, and staggering them up the wall to the ceiling.  This mostly depends on if Melissa's ends up needing more storage above her desk.  These brackets were definitely not the easiest to install, and didn't even come with screws the attach them to the wall (what the heck IKEA?), so we definitely don't want to jump into adding more shelves if we don't need to.  I think it could look really cool though, having a wall of floating shelves.

So with those few minor updates, Melissa has a completely updated and more functional office space.  I love the direction this room is taking, and as always, am so excited to see where it ends up!  You can see my side of the office and the rest of our progress here.

Have you been tackling any mini-updates recently?  Who else thinks a wall of floating shelves could be totally awesome?  And I am always taking suggestions, so let me know what you think could make this room even better in the comments!