The Cloffice

A few months ago, my husband and I underwent a rite of passage with which many of you are already acquainted – we bought a house.  After years of apartment living, we have joined the ranks of you homeowners and now do things that, say, 6 months ago, were unheard of in our vocabulary.  Our typical weekend activities of hitting the latest restaurants, sampling the newest cocktails, and hanging out with friends have now widened to include, you know, trying to figure out what’s a weed and what’s an actual plant (they should make a reality TV show out of this, seriously).

In general, the house is in fabulous shape, and there’s not a lotta “fixin’ up” needing to be done.  However, there’s one major project that has become apparent to me.  Hubby and I have each taken over a spare bedroom, and I’ve christened my own space as “Project Cloffice!”  It kinda needs an exclamation point, when you think about what a process this is going to become.  Also, it’s just fun to say, “Project Cloffice!” with the same urgency and enthusiasm as, "To the batcave!" or, "The plane!  The plane!"  Or not.

And what exactly is a Cloffice?  Why, it’s a closet + office!  Someplace where I can show off a few of my favorite things (Botkier shoes, funky blue felt dress, miniature Lobster Shoe I got at the Alexander McQueen retrospective last summer at the Met), as well as operating as an office, where I can blog from behind the piles of my now-vintage 80’s catalog collection.

It’s ridiculous how giddy I feel when faced with the “task” of creating a new space.  I’ve already scanned the interwebz for all kinds of ideas, scooping up great images and putting them on one of my Pinterest pages (yep, called, “Cloffice Ideas”).  I want the room to feel cozy, not so much like a typical office environment.  Since I may do some outfit assembling in here, I’ll want a staging area, too.  Basically, I want to stick my books, magazines, and such into a chic dressing room. 

One of the biggest hurdles is shelving.  I want some sleek shelves for all my books and CDs.  Um, OK, maybe I really want them for my, er, shoes.  I need something tall, relatively thin, minimal-looking, and ideally not requiring wall attachment.  You’d be surprised at how hard it is to find anything remotely floating my boat.  I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m just going to have to build the dang thing myself.  Armed with an architecture degree, the accompanying mindset that says, “Hey, I can make that!” even when it’s delusional to say so, a full woodshop at my in-laws’ homes, and 2 junior high woodworking classes, I have just enough to be dangerous.  As for a random thought of the day:  Who decided it was a good idea to let a bunch of 12 year-olds get their paws on a drill press, let alone near the table saw?

Other challenges include keeping things movable (if we ever have a kid, this room will probably become the nursery), figuring out the floorplan, and, of course, finding the right furniture. 

Direct from my Pinterest board, here are some retail images that have motivated me to start cleaning, purging, and making space for new stuff:

The bookshelves in white are the perfect backdrop for my shoes - clean and simple.  Not a fan of paying $400 for engineered wood, however.  $1200 if you go with this set up - pretty, but ouch!

After weirdly admiring the Benno CD tower for years, I finally bought this on a very rare trip to IKEA:

A comfy chair in a lively red color makes a nice statement in a room of neutrals.

What a great idea - from Lucky magazine...

To see additional lovely image inspiration from my Cloffice board on Pinterest, you can click here (some of the photos come from blogs, and I want to make sure I'm not stepping on any image right's toes).  You can spy the now discontinued IKEA Lack bookcase that I've wanted forever, as well as some great closets belonging to some lucky people.

I'll keep you posted as this deceptively simple project unfolds.  Have you tackled a similar room re-design?  Did you bite off more than you could chew?  And hey - maybe you know where I can get some great shelves???  

Wish me luck as I head into the forest of Project Cloffice!  Also...  photos from The Casual Challenge:  Week One, are upcoming...

Images:

#1 - CB2.com

#2 - ikea.com

#3 - crateandbarrel.com

#4 - photo from my Lucky magazine