Yesterday, with the weekend upon us again and our vacation drawing to a close, J and I did some shopping.  I decided I wanted to redecorate the office with a nature theme. So off we went to Marshall’s, TJ Maxx, Big Lots, and three different Tuesday Morning stores. I think I purchased something at every one.

When we first moved into the house now seven years ago, my writing space was a small desk in the corner of the dining room. I wrote two books at that desk. J primarily uses a lap top in the living room in front of the TV now, but at the time we bought a new desk for him and the office was his space. He never used it since there is no TV in there, so it soon became mine and I gave up my corner office in the dining room to him.

We furnished the office with a single bed about three years ago, but got rid of it last year. My mother had slept in it once when she came for a visit. I slept in it occasionally last year. But other than that, the bed was just a catch-all or a bed for the cats. When a coworker was searching for a new bed for her grandson who’d outgrown his crib, we were happy to part with it.

Since then, the office was my computer space and a dressing room.  My shoes could frequently be found thrown across the floor, along with the free weights and occasional dog toy. The walls , once decorated with J’s things to define the space as his, were now a mosh of knick-knacks on shelves or blank. I’d tried to organize it some at times, but was never in the mood nor happy with the outcome. In other words, the room was cluttered – on the floor, on the desk, and on the walls.

Take a look:

I had a lot of fun purchasing new framed photos, a vase, silk flowers, a decorative box, push pin boards, a shadow box, picture frames, a coat rack that hangs on the wall, a bird cage, a new lamp, and several knick-knacks.  All of which were a bird theme. I’ve always loved birds and kept finding so many nice things that matched.

I used a lot of my own photographs of flowers in our back yard as accents, along with family pictures, a set of vintage postcards, more pictures from the Botanical Gardens trip we took on Wednesday, and a few Emily Dickinson poems I ripped from a book. It took several hours of cleaning, dusting, vacuuming, hammering, and arranging but the result was exactly what I wanted. I can now say I have a room of my own. At least that’s what it feels like. It feels creative and alive.

Here’s one more picture of what it looked like yesterday after the shopping was done:

And are you ready for it?  Here’s how it looks now:

I love the two framed push pin boards and the shadow box.  I can easily change the photos for a new look. I’ve never been much for silk flowers, but I think the sunflowers add a touch of whimsy.  You can’t see them, but there are even birds on the vase. I also added some feathers and pine cones from our back yard for a natural touch. The coat rack has necklaces hanging on it. And all of the photos you see of flowers and nature were taken by me. Most were right from our back yard.  And yep, I even took everything off the desk and gave it a good dusting, and then rearranged everything and threw a lot of stuff away!

It feels nice and clean, but it’s also just the space I need which makes me want to be creative.  Here’s hoping it works!