My New Desk

Hi friends!

I'm in the mood to talk about decorating!

Who's with me?!

It's been on my mind because I've been working on tweaking a corner in my home lately...

It all began with a new (old. Very old!) desk that Micah refinished for me.

Wanna see it?!

I think she's lovely!

This is very exciting for me because I've never had an office or desk since we've lived in this house. I've always just used the end of my dining room table. It worked just fine but it looked junky having my papers and computer in what is supposed to be a formal dining room!

On one of our last antiquing adventures, Micah and I picked up this desk very inexpensively. It was covered in about ten coats of thick paint!

Micah appreciates original wood that's been preserved, or else restored, (versus wood that's painted) so he took it out to his workshop to strip it and work on it.

I, for one, very much like painted wood, so our home is a nice mix of both. He really took this desk on as his own project though, so I just stayed out of it and let him restore the original wood.

He bought new hardware for it and gave it these curvy feet...

I really love an authentic look in home decorating, (and Micah's the same way!) so I was happy with his choices.

Once the desk was completed, we ran into a small problem...

We didn't know where to put it!

It lived in our basement for months! But it was perfectly finished and ready to go... What a shame! Until one day I looked at this awkward little corner in my bedroom...

And it finally clicked with me!

Other than the dresser, this corner of my room was meaningless. The items were meant to just fill the space...

I got a hold of Micah one evening and talked him into hauling the desk up two flights of stairs so that it could be in my room and be put to good use.

(It's where I'm sitting right now as I type this blog post!)

Of course, nothing can ever be quick and easy when it comes to this sort of thing... Our first step was to remove the large and heavy barn door that was leaning against the wall...

One thing lead to another and I ended up revisiting how this entire half of my room was decorated. 

When I originally decorated it, I thought I wanted "blank spaces" in this room because I believed it would be calming and serene for me. 

That resulted in empty spots such as this...

I do believe that a few nicely done "blank spaces" in decorating can "give the eye a place to rest," as my mother would say. Don't feel as though you must fill up every nook and cranny in your home. My mother also used to tell me that just because you have something, doesn't mean you have to use it! Ask yourself if what you have will be good for the space.

So, keeping those things in mind, I was ready to slowly add to this space!

I moved the wooden rocker over...

Then added this sheet music wreath that I had made years ago, along with this little watercolor that a friend had given me...

It's an original painting of a robin's nest with two blue eggs inside, because my friend knows I love birds. Isn't it just wonderful to have good friends?!

It took me a few days to warm up to this, though. I was so used to this spot being empty. 

It's also important to me that my house flows, so to speak, from one room to the next. So to figure out what's best for this wall meant taking the whole view into consideration. I stood here looking into the guest room to see if it was visually pleasing to me...

By the time I was done fiddling with all of this, Micah was ready to start bringing desk parts up...

I was giddy with excitement!...

When he got it all set up he realized that he had forgotten something... 

These tiny drawers in the insert of the desktop were never given new knobs!

Once this was realized, we both took off in different directions to check our "stashes" for something that would fit the bill. (When one decides to renovate a 100-year old farmhouse over the course of several years, one accumulates random salvage "stashes" throughout the house, haha...)

Micah came back with small, white porcelain knobs, and I came back with these...

Darling little brass flowers that my grandma had given me a few years ago.

She said, " I'm not sure what they are but I figured you could find a use for them."

(She knows me well:)

They were perfect for my little desk drawers!

Micah screwed them in for me.

I am a happy girl!!!

Would you like to see the space completed?

This was my first stab at it...

I kept the antique birdcage in the corner for a few days but it never set well with me. Because it's white and the walls are white, I felt that the corner needed something more substantial.

So I had this antique column brought in. I figured I would use it in the corner as a plant stand. I had visualized a fern for this space, but when I stopped by my local nursery, there wasn't a single fern in the entire store! I knew I needed a low-light plant because this corner receives no sunlight. Other than ferns, the only other low-light houseplant that I know of are Peace Lily's. So I bought one of those instead...

It's a beautiful plant but it's huge! My nursery didn't have one any smaller. The night I brought it home and placed it in the planter I joked with Micah when he came into the room... "Welcome to the jungle!" I laughed.

He just rolled his eyes and didn't say a word. Haha... (He's a good man. He has put up with me and my decorating for ten years now, and just lets me do my thing... )

So, this is what this corner of my room looks like today...

I really like it!

I decorated my desk with things I find beautiful... Antique books, an oil on canvas landscape, tulips, and a needlepoint chair...

And in case you are curious about how this corner relates to the rest of the room, I'll include these next few photos...

I sure am enjoying having this cute desk in my room. I'm also quite thankful to have a hard-working husband who's willing to tackle these projects for our home!

And I am thankful for YOU, dear readers, who have been with me since I started this blog over a year ago already!

I started it because I noticed there were two types of blogs for stay-at-home moms in Blogland; The keep-it-real "Mom" blogs that were promoting chaos, messes, and unruly children as normal and OK, and the "Design" blogs that were promoting magazine-worthy home decor as if that's all there is to life... I felt I didn't fit into either category. I wanted to find a blog that was about real-life mothering but in a home that was beautiful and well-cared for. I'm not saying I've achieved that perfectly, but I realized in order to have such a blog in Blogland, I may have to write it myself! 

So, that's what I did. 

And what I continue to do. 

I am still learning myself, you know! A lot of what I write is to remind and motivate  ME! Haha...

But I invite you to come along on the journey!

Let's be good and loving mama's and give our families clean, beautiful homes!

We can do it, girlfriends!

Until next time...

xo,

~ Courtney ~