Welcome to Author Next Door!

My husband knows to be very afraid when I borrow his 25′ Stanley tape and walk around measuring things, which is exactly what I’ve been doing the last few days. I’m contemplating changes in my office/writing space. You know how it is around New Year, ‘Out with the old, In with the new,’ and all that. So, that huge hutch holding old books and magazines? I need to toss or box up the reading material I don’t use, put the old Nancy Drew books on Ebay before anyone who might buy them goes into a retirement home, and find another home for the big piece of furniture my husband bought at a consignment store. Yes, it’s served its purpose for years. Now I’m thinking that it doesn’t.

You know how this works: removing the hutch leaves a 56 ½” wide, 28” deep vacuum and creates a domino effect. Rearrange? Add a recliner from another room? Try something totally different? Help! I’m lost, because the whole “design gene” skipped me.

I can think of things I’d like to put there: lateral file cabinets (they are pricey, so I can hear my husband saying, “What’s wrong with the four file drawers you have now?”); maybe built-in cabinets for storing office materials/relocating the two printers; or more bookshelves (again, my husband would say, “You’d have space if you’d get rid of books in your other bookshelf”). I choose not to listen to those voices.

It would be nice to get the clutter off my desk, off the shelves behind my desk, and out of the stacked crates in the corner. Did I mention I hate filing? Stacking works for me, especially in a fan shape around where I’m sitting. Ask me where something is and I can pull it out for you, most of the time. Unless it’s important and my husband needs it right now. Or the stack gets so high it falls over. Twice.

Maybe a sitting area away from the TV room might work there. While I’m dreaming, it would be nice to have all the dark granite cabinet tops in my house replaced, a frameless shower door installed in the master bath, and the Property Brothers spending two weeks renovating my house for free. “We’re going to start by taking out that wall….”

But I digress.

To put things in perspective, one whole wall in my study is covered by a floor-to-ceiling bookcase (not moving). One wall has a large window and short bookcase which sits beside my desk. The wall behind my desk has the “vacuum” space about the size of a closet with no door (my desk chair is too close to use the rest of the wall), and the last wall has several chest-high bookcases holding two printers and lots of stuff, with a shredder sitting next to them. So, here’s where I ask for help.

What would YOU recommend putting in that space? What configuration works well in your office, or what’s something you wish you had in your office? I’d really love to hear your suggestions–please!

And before I go back to pacing, may I wish for you a new year filled with happiness, health, and many pages of completed manuscripts.

Now, where did I put that measuring tape?

Karen Taylor Saunders