Hear more from DBL!
-
Like DBL on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
Get more inspiration
Share DBL
Looking for something?
All Art Celebrations Cleaning Closets Contests Cool Things Crashing Excursions Curb Appeal Dining Room DIY Entryway Events Family Room Food Free Printables Furniture Garage Get Inspired Get Organized Giveaways Great Outdoors Guest Bathroom Guest Bedroom Guest Blogging Healthy Living Home Accessories Home Gym Home Office House Crashers Kitchen Laundry Room Life Living Room Master Bathroom Master Bedroom Nursery Our Love Painting Party Time Photography Pinspiration Reader Redesign Shopping Sponsored Posts Technical Stuff Travel Inspiration Wall Decor
-
Recent Posts
- The Power of Arrangement
- I’m Back with a Furry: Change Your Air Filter, Better Your Allergies
- Something’s Gotta Give
- Dressing Up Our Front Door
- Bench Planning
- Mobile Blogging
- Organize Fruit with a Plant Stand
- Stripping Paint Off a Door the Right Way
- Beat the Door Into Submission
- Testing Out the DSLR, Easter Style
We’ve been FEATURED!!!
Category Archives: Home Office
CHALLENGE RESULTS: No Money, Big Results
Well, it’s official, March is over and we’re already into April! Whew… that went fast! At the beginning of the month, I challenged myself to an entire month of projects without spending a dime! I am proud to say that I got quite a few things accomplished, but there are still tons of projects that can still be done for free that I just didn’t get a chance to get to. So how’d I do on money? Almost perfect! I spent a total of $30.50 for the entire month of March! Not bad right?!?!? I really did plan on spending no money at all, but when push came to shove, there were a couple things I needed. First, Target seduced me into purchasing five baskets for my office closet makeover! Though, in my defense, I knew that I would not be able to get comparable baskets for less than $7 a piece, so it was basically a 66% savings and something I just couldn’t pass up! Do you blame me? Second, I needed to come up with a fun DIY donation for a local charity, so I spent $20 for an Ikea Latt Kid’s Activity Table. Technically, I think this $20 shouldn’t count since it was for charity. Now, how’d I do on projects? I’ll let you be the judge… Biggest Impact: Building Custom Storage for my home office closet, and then using mostly items on hand to get everything organized! This has given me a ton of usable space, where I had none before. Now, all of my camera equipment, office/craft/art supplies, and electronics (including cords) have their very own basket to call home. After I’ve lived with this a bit, I will likely work on an inner-basket organization system to compartmentalize each basket to make them even more … Continue reading
7 Simple Steps to Create Built-In Closet Storage
It’s really that simple! Built-in storage is essential in closets these days. In a perfect world, closets would always come with a full, functioning, effective closet kit, but they just don’t. In fact, bedroom closets are nearly useless when in their builder-grade state. Most closets are equipped with just one rod and a shelf just above it. This is extremely useless if you are looking to get organized! In fact, it is almost counter-productive because the one rod and one shelf are usually placed awkwardly two-thirds of the way up the wall, leaving the top, one-third completely useless. In addition to the wasted “headroom,” most builder-grade closets have a couple feet at each end of the closet that is made almost unusable and inaccessible when clothes are hung because it sits behind the wall. This wasted side space is exactly the area I chose to tackle this time around. Ok… my rant about builder-grade closets has ended. Here we go… Looking to upgrade your builder grade closet on the cheap without looking cheap? You’re in luck! These are my simple and straight forward instructions to add basic storage to any builder-grade closet- no demo required! Supplies Needed: MDF (1/2” or plywood if you prefer) Tape Measure Pencil Circular Saw (and table saw if you have one) Semi-Gloss or Gloss Paint Brushes and Rollers Caulk (and caulking gun) Hammer Finishing Nails Drill Screws (1.5” course thread drywall screws) Instructions: Step 1: Cut MDF to size for shelves and shelf supports NOTE: My shelves all measured 17” deep by 24” wide. Rear shelf supports were all 24” wide and 2.5” tall. Side shelf supports were all 16.5” wide by 2” tall. Step 2: Once all pieces are cut to size, install rear shelf supports first, leveling. We used five screws per … Continue reading
Posted in Closets, DIY, Get Organized, Guest Bedroom, Home Office, Painting
4 Comments
Maximize Your Closet Functionality FOR FREE!
I’ve made huge headway over the weekend in maximizing my home office storage and functionality!!! Since I’ve been working behind the scenes on some non-DIY projects, I’ve realized that my home office now needed greater functionality than it had before. In an effort to build extra storage to the existing space without buying anything, I decided to maximize the closet’s functionality! How, you ask? Built-ins! I decided to devise some built-in storage for those awkward, generally useless spaces that seem to be built into builder-grade closets. Not sure what I’m talking about? These are the two spaces I was looking to improve: While I had made some basic improvements to the closet when cleaning out and creating my wrapping storage system, there was still lots to do! My basic idea was to take the left side of the closet and build in four large, deep shelves, and build in just one large shelf on the right side, situated just below my hanging wrapping paper. The finished results were 100% worth it! In the end, the spaces now serve the EXACT purposes that I need- storage and beauty! And… the best part is the price tag! This project came in at 100% FREE! We used already purchased MDF that was taking up space in the garage and painted it using the same white paint we’ve used to paint trim throughout our home! Who doesn’t like free?!?!? I’m loving my results so much, that I actually enjoy keeping the closet doors open now, but I can’t! After all, I have to be able to see the notes on both sides of my chalkboard! What a terrible problem to have! I’ll be back tomorrow with a full tutorial and supply list to get this look and functionality yourself! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO … Continue reading
Posted in Closets, DIY, Get Organized, Guest Bedroom, Home Accessories, Home Office
11 Comments
How to Make Colorful Watercolor Tags
This no-spend month has really been a ton of fun! It’s challenged me creatively and forced me to think outside my normal “box.” In working to organize my office, I wanted to continue to inject color in addition to organize everything. Knowing that labels are KEY to organization, I set out to make pretty, colorful, effective labels for use in my hopefully soon-to-be organized office closet! Now, I know there are lots of computer generated graphics that I could’ve used to get a healthy dose of color, but I really wanted to get away from the computer for this part, and go elementary-style on myself! Yup, that’s right… I broke out the super cheap-o watercolors and paint brushes! I figured I could do some muddled-watercolor backgrounds and then print computer-generated text onto the dried painted paper. Truthfully, I couldn’t be happier with the results! Basically, this is how it went… 1- Paint paper with watercolors (TIP: if trying to achieve muddled color effect, paint entire page with water first) 2- Randomly paint on colors to create variation and depth 3- Allow to dry 4- Once dry, create desired text on the computer, insert dried watercolor painting into printer, and press “print!” 5- Next, I used spray adhesive to adhere the watercolor paper to white card stock for additional strength 6- Trim off excess card stock 7- Use hole punch (if needed for your project) 8- Attach to surface (I used ribbon to attach my labels to some white baskets) Now begins the fun organization project of putting everything in their newly labeled homes! ENJOY!!! ANYONE ELSE HAVE A FAVORITE FREE LABELING TECHNIQUE? LABELS ARE FUN, BUT PRETTY LABELS ARE EVEN BETTER, RIGHT? Linking up… Blog this! Bookmark on Delicious Digg this post Recommend on Facebook Share on Linkedin Share on … Continue reading
Posted in Art, DIY, Get Organized, Guest Bedroom, Home Office, Painting
10 Comments
Chalkboard Closet Doors
Recently, more and more, I’ve started to notice that I have a real need for a large, visible writing surface in my office to keep track of all those major “tasks” that don’t really fit on a daily to-do list. When my git’r done month of no spending self-challenge was announced, it suddenly dawned on me that I had the perfect, free solution- painted chalkboard closet doors!!! To begin with, the closet door had been hiding in our garage ever since we bought the house because they were so disgusting that I refused to actually let them exist inside of our home. I’ve actually never seen closet doors soooooo dirty- I mean, how do people live like that?!?!? Anyways, I digress. My solution involved a fresh, new bright white paint job for the doors, repainted hardware, and then finally, a proper chalkboard surface. Supplies I used included: white semi-gloss paint (leftover whole-house trim paint) Rustoleum chalkboard paint(purchased for other projects in the past, but never used) Frog Tape (yes, I just might have become bff’swith my Frog Tape by this point) small foam rollers (2, with handle- had on hand from previous projects) This was my process: Wipe down doors with all-purpose cleaner and allow to dry Remove door pulls, and prime and paint them using spray paint Paint both sides of closet doors with 2-3 coats of white paint (this is easiest to do outside on a warm, sunny day that will allow for quick-drying, multiple coats, and flipping the doors for completion) Once all the blemishes were covered up, and an even white surface was achieved, the doors were brought inside and allowed to “set” for a few days After completely set, I taped off the shape of my “chalkboard” using my handy-dandy Frog Tape TIP: if you … Continue reading
Posted in Closets, Guest Bedroom, Home Office, Painting
12 Comments
Endless Options: Find Your Best Gift Wrap Storage Solution
In Monday’s post about headway being made in my office closet, I shared some pictures of my wrapping paper storage. Apparently, a lot of people liked it because I got some comments for more details and a good amount of emails asking for the links to buy the products. Suffice to say I LOVE the storage system and I’m glad you guys do too, so here are the details! I used the following materials: 1 Ikea Bygel Bar, 21 3/4 inches long ($1.99; same as our Laundry Room for holding the cleaners on the wall) Ikea Dignitet curtain ring with clip, in stainless steel ($4.99 / 24 pack- obviously I used WAY less than one package and thus have a ton left over for future projects)\ 3-Drawer Sterilite System (I seriously have no idea how in the hell this is $54.99! That seems insane to me. I’ve had this one forever, and I really have no idea how or where I got it, but I can tell you, I didn’t pay no $55 for it! So if you need something like this… check IKEA or WalMart first!) Obviously the bar and hooks were used to store my wrapping paper, but to store gift bags, I simply took one large, colorful bag and folded all of the other gift bags and gift boxes inside of it. Then, the Sterilite drawers now hold these items: drawer 1- ribbons and tissue paper; drawer 2- craft supplies; drawer 3- art supplies. In the final “prettifying” stage, I will definitely add some fun labels. If you don’t have an Ikea nearby and are still looking for a great way to efficiently store wrapping supplies, you should definitely check out these ideas! They are totally amazing and can be completely customized to fit your individual needs. … Continue reading
Posted in Closets, DIY, Get Organized, Guest Bedroom, Home Office
10 Comments
