Hello and welcome to 2016! It's been a long time since we chatted, since I was simply unable to get it together last week. Unfinished blog posts about thrifty Christmas decorating and fun, cheap holiday activities line my desk top. Boo. But it's a new year, and with it comes a new, fresh burst of productivity that has nothing to do with tinsel.

Or at least, that was the hope.

But, when I looked around on Saturday and realized how much I need to get organized for the new year, new job, new plans for the blog, I knew it was finally time to pull the trigger on my "office," which until that moment was pretty much a desk piled with papers and shoved into the hallway.

I spent some time just purging (see ya, broken and unnecessarily large lamp), quickly organizing the drawers, and even cleaning out the closet behind it, which serves as half my craft closet, and half Bret's work stuff. That stuff wasn't so bad - the bones were good - so the organizational refresh didn't take much time. I'll share the results in a separate post.

That's a crappy, blurry shot, but I want to show the bit of black stripe on that far wall. Remember when I painted black chalkboard stripes for our hall gallery? Well, I wasn't sure where to stop, so I only did the first stretch of our L-shaped hall. I've regretted it ever since. Not only did I think the suddenly blank walls looked unfinished, but once we moved my desk back here, I missed the functionality of a chalkboard stripe as well. Painting it was low on my list, until I realized that, until I broke down and painted the darn thing, the desk was going nowhere. I was just going to keep leaning things against it and piling things on top of the chaos. So Saturday, I seized the bull by the horns, taped off and painted the darn stripes.

Already, so much better! It feels like more of a room for some reason. Then came the fun part: putting everything back. I hung up the magnetic/white board (found on the street, y'all), some of my favorite art, and chalked in my daily to do list.

When in doubt, bring in plants. That's what I always say. The roses (which, I'm not always into roses, but these pale greeny yellow ones are just so lovely), and the other plant make the area feel like less of a pass-through. The art makes it feel thoughtful and fun. hanging the chalk and dry erase markers on command hooks (the ones I'd sprayed gold to hang our stockings) makes use of the wall space rather than cluttering my desk.

The picture above shows the continuation of the black stripe. Isn't it so much better?

I've been hoarding pretty little things for this hall of my own for a while: the gold-lined black cups are from a local housewares store, the black and gold pens hail from Target's $1 Spot, and the new planner is a splurge I was practically purring over when I found it at a local paper shop. I love this little space now. I actually worked back there this morning, and that's a first for me. (Normally, I drag my laptop out and set up shop on our sofa). This space isn't as pink and overtly fem as my last take, in the guest room (Now the West room), but I love it. It's actually more me, even though a lot of the components are the same.

So, that's all she wrote about this! If you've got any questions about sourcing, shoot me a line in the comments. I hope your new year is off to a kickin' start!