Office Tour

When I’m talking to someone about my work, my office tends to come up in the conversation. I think people’s reactions are usually one of two things: 1) how in the world can I fit an office into our small house, or 2) an office, so fancy!!!!!

My office space isn’t much, but it suits my needs for now. And, since it is clean (or was clean when I took the pictures…), I thought I’d take you all on a little tour!

Welcome to my office!

It’s about a third of our finished basement space; the other part is the kid’s playroom area. Excuse the curtain panel hanging down in the middle of the view; it’s there for when the kids have friends over, we close up the curtains and it helps detract them from going over into my space.

We’ll start at my desk area:

This desk is seriously one of my favorite pieces of furniture EVER. It has lots of drawer space, a really nice size top, and there are extra pull outs on either side for additional flat surface space, which comes in handy often! My work printer is to the right (on the white bookcase), and all of my note card supplies, ink, printer paper, and recycling bin are stored there. The printer to the left is the main house printer.

The artwork is all Doctor Who themed, and it’s by the amazing artist James Hance. If you haven’t checked his stuff out and you like geeky or nerdy things, you really should!!!!

The brown file cabinet holds all my business papers, specialty papers, print supplies, and the white one is dedicated just to all of my Boathouse Mouse notes, sketches, and designs.

And then we have my main work table. It’s directly under the only light in the office, and this is where my assembling of products, illustrating, photographing products, and creating new products happens. It’s also nice because it has a view to the playroom, so I can talk to the kids when they’re playing. Our dog Mason loves to ‘help’ me in the office, so he’ll pick a couch to lay on and will come over to visit me once in awhile to make sure I’m doing okay.

Next to the work table is most of my product supplies. The shoe organizer holds extra jewelry boxes, note card boxes, and any other supply that’s too big to fit into the hardware organizer. The hardware organizer mostly holds all the jewelry supplies, but also has extra ribbon and gift tag supplies. The headboard (I like to repurpose things, can’t you tell?) holds illustrating/watercolor jewelry supplies, print backer boards, and other adhesives/mediums for products that I need close by.

The decorations are things that make me happy. They range from my favorite stuffed animal as a child to trophies, or even little knick knacks I’ve picked up or have been given over the years.

Oh, and the curtain is askew…because a certain little kitty likes to climb up there when I don’t notice, watch birds on the ground for awhile, and then JUMP down really loudly onto my work table and give me a heart attack. *sigh*

My big shelving unit holds my big cutting mats, Boathouse books, projects I’m in the middle of, and on the bottom shelf, all of my shipping supplies.

And then we start getting into product and festival storage! It’s pretty messy and disorganized, so I didn’t take many pictures of this corner.

And along the back wall of the office are bookcases. They’re either all of my husband’s resources for teaching, my personal books, or this bookcase, which holds my art books and extra festival decorations, displays, or my props for photographing products.

And here’s the rascally kitty now. He likes to ‘help’ by either laying on my work or by warming up an office chair, and not letting me have it back. This is why I have two in the office 😉

I hope you enjoyed the tour! When we put our addition on, I’ll either be moving into the basement addition part, or we’ll be redoing this space so it’s better lit and designed to my needs. Once we have a better idea of when that will happen, maybe I’ll do a post on office designs.

Do you want to have a tour of my studio or see future office designs? Let me know below!