georgetownhouse ([info]georgetownhouse) wrote,
@ 2007-01-08 22:57:00
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Sending out an S.O.S.

This post is in response to an "S.O.S." contest on a DIY-related online community (community originator, please feel free to post a link - I just wasn't sure if you'd want me to!). I was only allowed to post 2000 characters there to describe why this room needs help, why I need help. HA!! Anyone who knows me knows that I can't limit my answer to 'what's your name?" to 2000 characters if I'm in the right mood, and boy am I in a mood. 

So here it is, S.O.S. judges: The room I hate most and need help with the most:

I'm not sure if this room needs love or a blowtorch. It certain needs some ideas from someone a lot more creative than we are, either that or someone to take a baseball bat to our heads and tell us to stop trying to make this room into so many things at once.

This room is the office, the computer room, the dog's room, the exercise room, and [organized fairly well in the closet, the only sensible part of the room] the office supply storage and things-we-need-to-keep-in-the-house tool storage room. We want it to serve all of those functions. We need it to serve all of those functions. We have no clue as to how to do that, and even less of a clue about how to make it not be so ugly. We have no idea how to do anything with this room and it hurts to even think about it.

It's important to note as backstory that this room is also the Room Formerly Known As the Gag Me Room. The previous occupant (back when the house was a boarding  house for college baseball students) was used by the "adult supervisor" of the house. Adult. Yeah, right. The yellow sticky smoke residue is still thick on the walls though no smoking was allowed in the house. He put built-ins anchored with the biggest screws and bolts he could find everywhere: his bed on one wall, a long table on another wall, a platform bed for his young son for when he visited plus another desk on a third wall, plus a big divider wall right down the middle of the room, anchored directly into the hardwood floors. So now we have holes, gashes, smoke goo, and the lingering remnants of mouse poo everywhere. Mouse poo?!? Ohhh yes. The guy was a total slob. Behind and on top of every bolted-in piece of wood were a zillion bits of food and three zillion bits of mouse poo.

So we don't want to paint or do anything else to fix it up until we figure out exactly how to set it up. And we seriously need some help figuring out how to set this room up to be functional, organized, and appealing. Here are the more objective facts of what's in and what we want to have in this room.

What's in there now:

  • A big treadmill (must stay - we are not hauling that sucker upstairs)
  • A curl bar, hand weights and stack of freeweights (we'd like it to stay where the treadmill lives)
  • A small portable wire stand with a small tv/dvd and stereo (tv/stereo must stay in order to allow me to consider using the treadmill; what its on can go)
  • Two large dog crates (alas, within the next year or so only one will be needed)
  • A too-big antique desk with lots of personal value, used by one person with a laptop for geeking around online, bill paying, work, and homework (staying).
  • A smaller corner modern style computer desk, used by 1-3 people for games, online, work and homework (staying)
  • A tall bookcase (could be moved out or used for another purpose)
  • A short file cabinet toppped with some random storage thingy that holds the printer (could be replaced by something else)

What we can't figure out:

  • A much better setup for papers. As you can see, our current vertical filing system just isn't working, and the concept of Filing without a personal secretary to do so just isn't realistic. We basically need neat, organized, attractive, accessible and functional separate dumping grounds for unpaid bills, paid bills that can disappear after tax time, important tax related stuff such as contribution receipts, general purchase receipts in case we need to return something or find out how many zillion dollars we spent at Lowes in the past year, "how to make this work" booklets and warranty information, and Important Things to Keep Indefinitely (stuff that might eventually make it into a file cabinet/drawer)
  • Related to that, a much better use of the wasted wall space over the desk and dog crates, bearing in mind that we won't be able to reach regular depth shelves very easily because of how deep the desk and crates are. The dog crates don't need to be right next to each other though.
  • A way to squeeze in a weight bench or at least some kind of stand for the free weights so that they don't fall down on a kid, dog or toe. 
  • Paint (we want COLOR, but what?!?) and a ceiling fan that actually looks nice.
  • Task lighting.

Here are the pictures:

Ladies & gentlemen, in this corner, facing the door that goes to the hallway, you see, starting on your left, the tail end of the treadmill, the only window in the room, an ugly cabinet that we haven't torn down yet, and the two remaining large dog crates topped with the now unused small one and lots of junk.

Turning clockways to the next corner, you see the dog crates, the small corner computer desk (yes, that's Bruce Lee - don't ask), and the start of the Desk of Chaos.

Turning to the next corner, you see The Desk and The Mess. Yes, that's mine. Anyone want to venture a guess why I'm working at the dining room table right now?

Finally you see the tv & stereo, the door to the back end of our wrap-around front porch, the bookcase, and the front end of the treadmill.

Help me, S.O.S. assistance; you're my only hope.

Here's a link to old blueprint showing this room as "owners bedroom" to give dimension and perspective on its place in the house. Note that it's not quite accurate - the room has one big, not two small closets, and there's a second electric baseboard heater on the left side of the room - they probably forgot to show it since it's not one of the places where there used to be one of the original cast iron radiators that are now in a landfill somewhere, replaced with "Wonderful! Comfortable! Oh we just LOVE It [because we're landlords and don't give a rat's boohind how much our tenants pay]! electric baseboard heat!"

Sorry for such an intense ramble. It's been a long day, plus when I saw the opportunity to complain endlessly about and perhaps get some sympathy for and help with this horrid room, I had to go for it. We just have no ideas for it. None.

Help. 


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[info]daraqw
2007-01-09 05:33 am UTC (link)
I'll email you a drawing when I have some time to mark one up, but basically, the answer is to replace the study's porch door with a window, close up the door to the back hallway (useless), and put a new door to the study on the wall shared with the dining room (put it on the corner nearest the kitchen, but openning into the dining room. Put a glass/french door so you have more light. This door/window change also will help with cross-ventilation.

Now you can make the utility/laundry room bigger by closing off that end of the hall and moving the door to the new wall (at the end of the hallway). This gives you a real home maintenance/tool storage area so you can cross that function off the list

While you're messing up that side of the house, take out the upper part of that wall between the kitchen and the entry hallway. It will change the whole way you think about the kitchen space.

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[info]georgetownhouse
2007-01-09 06:18 am UTC (link)
OMG have I mentioned to you lately that I think that you are totally freakin' brilliant?!? Seriously!! You said that about a french door between the office and dining room and my jaw dropped - that would be so perfect. In fact that office room used to be the dining room. The closet in there used to be an opening to the living room. The dining room used to be the kitchen. The majority of the kitchen used to be the back porch. And somewhere in all of that was a big butler's pantry, location and size totally unknown. I'd give almost anything to be able to locate someone who could explain to me how things were laid out originally -- the previous owners were landlords only and "Ohhhhhhhh wow, boy we don't remember at all, we just basically came in and started gutting it all, didn't we, hon ::self-satisfied chuckle::" Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Uh... damn. One problem though: The chimney, which has been lopped off at the roofline but is totally intact from the roofline to the basement. That's that thing right in the middle of the wall between the dining room and office.

That hallway is just garbage space though. And I've been playing with plans to take the current kitchen, mud room and dining room and open it all up into one big eat-in kitchen, but of course other things like a new HVAC system and probably a new porch roof have to be higher priorities. Long term plans, though. And long term plans would probably prioritize expanding the size of the bathroom in some way to make it more accessible, if we end in need of single-floor living - current thought on that is to eliminate the hallway and put a [regular] door to one side or the other of the chimney, reconfigure the closet to another wall, and put another door back into the living room - necessary because the passageway between dining room and living room includes a two-step up/down landing at the base of the stairs.

Right now I'm just desperate for ways to organize and gussy up that office without doing any structural changes - something we can do in the next month or two as opposed to the next year or five.

I can't ever consider closing off that door to the porch, though. That side of the porch is my special place to sit at night.

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[info]manzabar
2007-01-09 05:41 pm UTC (link)
Rather than a glass/french door you might also want to consider a shoji screen. That way you get the light coming through, but it also hides the room in case in gets messy again.

You also might want to try checking with city, county government to see if they have older blueprints for your house on file.

As for more immediate fixes.... Well, your pictures don't give a good impression of how much space is left to work with after you account for the items that you cannot move out of there. So here's some more generic ideas:
1. Find a better stand for that TV, preferably something that will hide the wires. Maybe you can find some sort of cabinet that will let you put other stuff away underneath the TV.
2. Get a couple of wall shelves and move those baskets of stuff off your desk on onto the shelves. Then label the baskets to keep them sorted. Since you mention you cannot easily use regular depth shelves and storage is a bit issue, maybe build the shelves yourself and make them extra deep?

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[info]georgetownhouse
2007-01-09 07:41 pm UTC (link)
Thanks for your ideas!

I love shoji screens, but I have first hand experience with seeing how shoji screens aren't a good choice when you have a jump dogs who tends to dig at doors when he wants to come in.

I've already checked for older blueprints, nada. ::insert grumbly face here::

I definitely need to figure out something better to do with that TV. I know what would be the most functional solution: One of the articulating wall-stands. The problem is that those suckers are EXPENSIVE!! And these days, most seem to be for flat panel tv's. I'm looking into other shelving ideas that would at least let me get it off the ground and onto just a regular turntable.

I'm going to look first for some baskets that would work, then look for or build a shelf somewhere to accomodate those baskets. Maybe if I find some decent looking baskets that are big enough to hold legal-size paper (though I rarely need that), they will be deep enough to not look absurd on an extra-deep shelf.

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[info]daraqw
2007-01-12 10:12 pm UTC (link)
here's an idea using what you have now, plus a couple more pieces you'd have to acquire...
Georgetownhouse_studyGeorgetownhouse_study

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OMG
[info]cestmoiperidot
2007-01-17 05:01 pm UTC (link)
"He put built-ins anchored with the biggest screws and boltshe could find everywhere: his bed on one wall, a long table on another wall, a platform bed for his young son for when he visited plus another desk on a third wall, plus a big divider wall right down the middle of the room, anchored directly into the hardwood floors."

wow.

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