Turning one room into two

Winter is always a hard time for me to be productive because there is so little sunlight, but it's been extra bad lately. I haven't been able to concentrate on anything lately, including working on growing my Rodan and Fields consulting business. Late last week, I had an epiphany, so I finally did something about it.

As I was sitting at my dining room table in my combined yet over-sized and very open living/dining room, I realized that there is something about open spaces that blocks my ability to do work. In fact, when thinking harder about it, really open spaces that don't have a lot of furniture in them make me feel less comfortable as a general whole. I am a firm believer that the energy flow of an area can have a positive or negative impact on people, from their mood to their productivity levels. So, with that in mind, I started going around the house thinking of what I could do to make my own work space, and trying to figure out where I should put it.


My first thought was to somehow divide the living room and continue to use the dining room table. However, I then realized that I have a very large bedroom as well, with a table that I had intentions to turn into a desk over two years ago but all it has done is collect stuff since then. My next step was to figure out how to make my bedroom into two areas, so for that, I asked the Google gods. I found lots of ideas and ended up settling on using a shelving unit option, which would be both practical and functional.
This was Wednesday night.

 

When I get inspired to do something, I don't sit back and think about it, I do it. I am one to follow my intuition, and when it tells me something as strongly as this idea, why wait? If I was wrong on this, I wouldn't be out anything more than a few hours worth of effort and the cost of the shelving unit anyway.

Thursday I was in Heidelberg in the afternoon for a dentist appointment. Lucky for me, there was an IKEA on the way home about 20 minutes outside the main city, at which I stopped and purchased my new bookshelves prior to continuing the rest of the two and a half hour drive home.

Tiny cars plus IKEA furniture equals fun times.

A quick note - I drive a European car that is not much larger than a Smart car. When I pulled my cart up to the larger of the two bookshelves that I purchased, I actually thought to myself, "Will this fit in my car? I'm not totally sure how much shorter than my car it is. I don't think it's quite the full length, so it should hopefully fit. I'll make it fit." This resulted in quite a fun puzzle-fitting scene in the parking lot, and then when I got off the Autobahn and on to side streets, the turning caused the box to shift enough where I couldn't put my car in 5th gear for the last leg of the drive. Good times.

Anywho, I did actually make it home around 8:30 Thursday night, and because I had that inspiration going, I put together both of the shelves and filled them with the majority of my books before going to bed at about 12:30 am. Until doing this, I had no idea I had so many freaking books because they were spread out all over my house. It makes me feel very adult to know that I can fill multiple shelves full of books.

It was like Christmas for my cat when I moved the Schrank.

Friday I had a few things after work, but when I did get home around 9:30, I got to work on moving the rest of the furniture to its new home. The biggest thing was the Schrank (or closet), which took quite a bit of maneuvering to get from one wall to the other. And then there was finding a place for everything that I had decided should be hanging out on what is supposed to be my desk. That probably took the most time to sort through, but by this morning, I could officially call myself finished with my new work area!

Actually, that's almost true. While sitting here writing, I still felt a bit open on the side that faces the door, so I took one of the large plants from my yoga room and put it in the corner by the door, which made a big difference. NOW, I'm finished! The room is still very open, but it seems to "hug" me more than previously.

So far, I'm really enjoying my space. Now the goal will be to make sure to keep it clean so that it continues to be functional. I even took a water fountain that I bought for my cat about a month ago (which she had no interest in using, 60 euro later...), put some stones in it, and made myself a peaceful little running water background noise maker in the back corner by my chair. Since I can't concentrate with music in the background if I want to actually get anything done, it's perfect!

I think that there may be a few other touches here and there that I end up doing with it, but for right now, it's just what I need. I like it when I get inspiration to do something that I know will benefit me. I have to think less that way, and I just do as I feel. :)