Before and After

I love those designing shows, you know, the ones where they show the before and after and the place is totally transformed, neat, and oh-so-trendy. Unfortunately I don't have a shred of design know-how in my brain, and I very much admire my friends who do- Jerusalem at My Little Life and Jeanetta at Splendid Things.

When we moved into this house, we placed our desk in the living room. It just felt wrong from the beginning, but there wasn't a better alternative at the time. I'm also a recovering pack-rat and fight the "clutter fires" (ala FlyLady) on a constant basis, so you can imagine how the desk looked more often than not. To add insult to injury both our TV cabinet and desk (located side by side in a prominent area of our living room) were not "quality" furniture and had not fared well in our moves. I happened to come across a fabulous must-have desk in a parenting magazine. It looked like a wardrobe and had doors on it, so when it wasn't in use you could close it up and not see the stacks of papers. I wanted that for some time (along with a replacement for our decrepit TV cabinet, and long story short, after some shopping around we found some good quality replacements for both the TV cabinet and desk.

This is my before...
Here is the after...Now you see it, now you don't.