Organizing the Office

Want to know a secret? The office looks the same as the day I took my reveal photos. In essence, a styled room with empty drawers and cabinets.

Before I move everything back into the office, I wanted to map out where and how to store everything. I believe good design is first and foremost about function. A well-designed space makes the room easier to keep organized and use on a daily basis.

Like I mentioned in my first post about the office, this room is a hard worker that needs to store a bunch of things. So, to get started with the organization plan, I made a list of everything that needs to be stored:

1. Paper Shredder
2. Craft Paper (large and standard size)
3. Silhouette
4. Camera Equipment
5. Files
6. Printer
7. Printer Paper
8. Ink Cartridges
9. Large Hole Punches (2)
10. B’s school stuff (worksheet, school projects0
11. Extra Electronics – Cords, old hard drives, etc
12. Office Supplies
13. Crafting Supplies – Paint, color pencils, etc.
14. Laminator
15. Diplomas, Degrees & Old School Pictures
16. Binders
17. Extra Home Decor Items: picture frames, jars
18. Memory Box

I then assigned each group of items to the appropriate cabinet. The printer and shredder need electricity, so they will be in cabinets with access to an outlet. The large base drawers were specifically designed to hold files (top drawer), and the bottom drawer is perfect for the Silhouette and camera equipment. The Silhouette is too long to be stored anywhere else and the camera tripods can now be stored with my camera and lens! What a win!

I wanted all the printer supplies to be together, so I put the paper and extra ink in the same cabinet as the printer. We had an extra shelf at the bottom, which was perfect for the large hole punches we have and the laminator. The last cabinet will contain all of Ben’s school stuff. It will have papers, supplies and old worksheets that we are keeping. We also have a family memory box where we just throw things that we want to keep. Lastly, we have old, random electronics (old hard drives, cords, etc.) that will be stored here.

The upper cabinets will hold all the extra office supplies, binders, and our degrees. I also have space for some of my overflow home decor items. Right now, that is mostly picture frames and vessels. It’ll be nice to have a place to put the things I want to rotate throughout the year. Lastly, we’ll have a whole side of the upper cabinet empty. I’m sure it will get filled up as we go, but for now, it feels great to have more capacity!

The desk side of the office has three drawers. The top two drawers are small and will be used to store everyday office supplies. You know all the pens, highlighters, paperclips, rubber bands, label makers, staplers, and more. The bottom drawer is pretty deep. I think it could hold files,but I just want to store some paper and notebooks here. I’ll keep a couple of file folders for things that are “in progress” or need action.

I had to purchase a few things to make the most of some of the cabinets/drawers. For example, I bought the clear drawer organizer trays for the small desk drawers. Hopefully, these will prevent them from turning into junk drawers. I already have several paper trays that will come in handy to keep the papers inside the cabinet organized. I really like the gold one shown above, and maybe I’ll upgrade a couple of them. I had to purchase these hanging files bar for the top drawer to operate like a filing cabinet. I also purchased these under-the-desk cable trays to keep all the cords from the computer and equipment organized and off the ground. I already had these adorable paper boxes from Ikea. They’ll store all the loose office supplies. Lastly, I bought this three-drawer organizer to store some of the craft supplies (paint, markers, etc.).

Now that I have a plan in place (and all the supplies ordered!), I can put the office back together. At some point, I’ll share a full tour of inside the cabinets. Maybe when the chair arrives and we can put the finishing touches on the room?