About 1 year ago, I had a budding craft room and so many ideas on how I was going to fix it all up. I had post it’s all over the IKEA catalog and digital design boards to match. Then my husband came home one day and announced he had this fabulous new job – with a downside. I’ll lose my craft room because it will need to become his office.

Wait a minute.. You said WHAT???

As any good wife does, I reluctantly moved my expedit desk and bookcase to our empty dining area, and set up shop there. We used to keep our long dining room table here, until I realized JP needed to eat in an area where it could easily be cleaned. The tiled kitchen as opposed to our wall to wall carpet is much easier to clean off things like ketchup and spilled milk.

Since I don’t get alot of undisturbed time to do anything, so I found out I kinda like being out in the open while I do things at my desk. Alot of times, when I used to be set up inside a room – the door would remain shut to conceal the disaster within. I’ve learned to be better about that, now that my creative spot is part of our house!

So here’s what I had, pre-lighting makeover: A small IKEA desk lamp and natural lighting from the window.

The result? The world’s worst mish-mash!

A green wall, the old rug from JP’s nursery, 2 chairs from our dining room because we don’t need to seat 8 people, my desk and bookcase, oodles of craft junk and stuff related to my etsy shop. *whew*

That’s alot of crap for one tiny little corner!!

One big challenge I face with having an office with no door, is pile-ups occur on top of bookshelves when random objects fall into little hands. But buying storage furniture is for another time – this post is about a budget makeover!

This video from GE Lighting best expresses what i’d love to see happen around my house with respect to using energy saving bulbs! So far, i’m into this makeover for about 25 bucks and alot of elbow grease.

One of the things that remained from my once dining room, is the dining room light fixture that I loved so much when my dining room was a dining room. It takes 18 candelabra style bulbs! Eeek!

Either way, I love the light – but it’s not what I would have picked out for my office. So instead of using the overhead lighting, I decided to find a couple of lamps to keep the room lit. I took JP out shopping one evening, in hopes it would tire him out for bed time! All that happened from that experience was having to buy a spongebob light projector for bedtime. So cute, I couldn’t say no – especially because he sometimes wakes up at night crying from his bedroom that he’s scared of the dark. Awwww!

I got these for my office lamps, to brighten things up a little! They even had energy saving bulbs for outdoor lights! I didn’t know those existed!

I came home with some GE Reveal energy saving lightbulbs, enough for 3 sockets. I put one in the lamp next to my printer and 2 in another floorlamp with attached reading lamp that I resurrected from the garage.

I put out the old nursing chair I had from JP’s nursery, 1 of 2 pillows from our sofa and old lamp we might have thrown away. I even have enough room to keep my sewing machines where I will USE them!! I love sitting here now!

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