Closet to Office Conversion

As I mention in my Getting Stated post, I’m a stay-at-home-dad as well as a part time lawyer. Living in a 600 square foot apartment requires a little creativity if you expect to fit your whole life in such a little space. Fortunately, we were just crazy enough to convert one of our bedroom closets into my “office” out of this necessity.

Our bedroom has a walk-in closet. It also had this odd closet:

At first this closet-stretcher insert seemed like a great idea.  That was until I had clothes that needed hanging up.  That space to the right was basically unusable for anything worth hanging – as they would get dragged through the tight spot repeatedly, damaging the clothes.  It was also before I realized that the bi-fold doors prevented these drawers from opening fully.

Most important, it was before we needed a place that wasn’t our living room/kitchen/dining room to get my work done.  Alas, change was a’brewin.  It was time to make me a “proper” office space.

So first we gutted the whole thing.  Those pain in the rear bi-fold doors?   I got medieval on ‘em with a jig saw, and cut them down to re-use as my desktop and shelves.

Then I painted the insides and installed the old bi-fold doors horizontally:

From there it was no stopping me (aside from the long stretches where our room looked like a bomb went off in it – you know, I could never just do the project from start to finish without a little lag time in there).  I added the other bi-fold doors as the shelves, and it was really starting to come together:

And then suddenly I had it decorated; got my degrees hanging next to my Maryland bar certification, my files in order, and a few other things that probably should go elsewhere but won’t, because if it’s going to be my office, it should look at least a little chaotic.  And I even added that classic little green desk lamp (which I bought for 15 bucks – bulb included – at the Habitat for Humanity Restore in Gaithersburg, MD; if you’ve never been to one of these stores, get thee to one immediately!  They are a renovator’s candy shop).  I might be more proud of that little lamp than I am of the whole project.  Might.

And that was that.  Now if only the boy would stay down for a nap long enough for me to get some work done, this whole ordeal might just have been worth it…