For the last two-and-a-half years, my office has been a good friend and a nice space in which to get things done. For a while, I’ve had some bookshelves behind the desk, but last week Amanda and I moved those around to fit another shelf and instead put the couch behind my desk, which worked OK:

But after putting it there, I sat down on the couch and Amanda sat across the room, and we looked at the desk. We realized that it was now the most out-of-place thing in that room.

It had to go.

So the question became where to move the desk and my office space. We have a fourth bedroom that is not normally in use except as a library for all of our books. (We have many.) There was also a bed in that room as it is normally where my parents stay when they are visiting—or any other guest with us.

Amanda simply said, “Sofa bed.”

And the furniture moving began.

And then the furniture purchasing.

Less than a week later, my coworkers have been very generous and patient with me as I have been without the comforts of my desk and standard work environment, because the room I normally work in looks like this right now:

(Actually, there is even less in there now. The wall hangings to the left are down and there is new furniture in the room. It is no longer my office.)

The room that will become my new office is in this state right now:

I haven’t moved my desk in yet, because there is still a whole lot that needs doing in that room before I can do that. The list, in order of what gets done when:

• An electrician needs to come out and install a dedicated circuit for my PC, laptop, and screens. I’ve probably been putting too much stuff on the one in my current office, so I thought I would just cut to it and have a new one put in this time.
• The same electrician is going to run a Cat 6 line in that room because it will be both my work and my stream room, and I am not doing either on wifi because wifi sucks.
• The room is getting painted. My best friend has for some reason volunteered to do this with me. I hope he is still my friend after we are done.
• It needs some lighting. I am already looking at ceiling fixtures, and I need to come up with some kind of solution for streaming/video calls that is not behind me.
• Then we move in the desk and the gear. I’m taking the opportunity to do things like install a cable tray on my existing desk and get a better ethernet switch for the room as well.
• Wall hangings are totally happening.

Sadly, the electrical work is probably not going to happen for a couple of weeks, so I’m nomadic within my own home for a while. At the very least, I have created a cozy nook in my bedroom using one of the chairs we moved out of the lower level of the house.

I’ll be working out of this space for the near future as I wait for the work to be done on my new office. I’m really stoked for the new space, so I’m happy to put up with some inconvenience to get there.

And—oh yeah—we managed to throw out a ton of stuff, which is pretty cathartic, even if it is very sad at the same time because it feels like we are saying good-bye to the “parents of tiny humans” phase of our lives as our youngest will be turning four soon.

Previous office posts: hugs (2.0), 1.4, 1.3, 1.2, 1.1, 1.0, beta