With the wonderful addition of our beautiful daughter a year and a half ago, our playroom/office became bedroom #4. The toys were easily thinned out and divided between the boys’ rooms, friends, and a donation/yard sale box, but our desk ended up in our bedroom. *groan* But it could be worse (MUCH worse) because we used to use a folding table as a desk, but a few years ago, we were given a fantastic desk which I sprayed creamy white. [I’ll be chatting about that score and several others in a later post entitled “Fifteen Pieces of Furniture for Under $200 {Total}” (or something pithy like that).]

But a desk is a sort of cluttery place by nature, so we use a few tricks to keep it as pretty as a big honkin’ desk in the bedroom can be…

There is a drawer for my sharpies and paint pens… And another just the right depth for rolls of ribbon… Yes, I have a lot of markers and ribbons. Don’t hate. Are there items you have that can be organized and easily accessed with just a little rearranging? I kinda get inspired whenever I open these top two drawers… The bottom LEFT ribbon in the bottom RIGHT photo below (is that confusing enough?) is stored on three paper towel rolls. They take up much less space than the full original rolls of ribbon and help me keep loose pieces accessible and organized.

The other thing I have a lot of is paper: thick, thin, colored, textured, etc… [In my defense, I’ve been making custom invitations, announcements, and stationery for almost a decade, and I like to take my own paper to the printer, so at least I’ve got a reasonably good excuse… right?] I simply attach 12″ x 12″ scrapbook paper [half] “jackets” to the spines of some cheap cardboard magazine boxes from the office supply store. Just trim to fit height (if necessary), then glue the spine; then fold back paper and glue the sides. Easy-peasy. Of course, you could make these really pretty with an assortment of coordinating papers, but we wanted to keep the look very neutral… I didn’t exactly want the desk to become the design feature of the room. Add a few printed mailing labels to make everything easy to find and you’re done.

Oh yes, and it is a shared desk, of course… So of course I made sure my husband has ample room to really spread out…

I’m just generous like that.

So how do you organize (and prettify) your work area?