A Great Surprise For A Great Father

On my last post, I promised to fill you in on the project I had been working on for Father's Day. Out of love for my dearest, I neglected my blog to spend some quality time with the family instead. Sorry to keep you waiting, but here it is...

Cliff works hard and spends a lot of hours doing what he can to provide for our family and allow me to stay at home to raise our son. When Eli was born, Cliff had to give up his office for our son's bedroom. Still needing a place to work, our dining room quickly became his new office. Cliff is a computer programmer. He is also a musician who spent many years playing shows with his band and now leads worship at our church. Needless to say, he has a lot of stuff... mixing boards, guitars, amps, books, hard drives, cds, and things I can't even name. And all of this "stuff" has been crammed into his little space in an unorganized mess. So, I decided to surprise him with a new workspace.

I was first inspired by the Daily System I found on Pottery Barn's website...

Unfortunately, it was way out of my budget so I would have to make my own. I started by measuring the room and our desk. Then, I designed shelves on some graph paper and took them to my awesome father-in-law, who built them for me. After days spent sanding, painting, and preparing (all while the hubby was at work), my mother and Cliff's parents headed over on Friday morning to help me put it all together.

Allow me to first show you the embarrassing before photos...

And now the finished product...

Yay for custom shelving!!!

Using the same fabric I used on my reupholstered piano bench, I sewed together a simple curtain and hung it with a tension rod and clip rings across one side of the desk which allowed me to store stuff underneath.

I picked up this drawer deal at Wal-mart and only assembled the one drawer, leaving the bottom open for some of his equipment which had previously been stacked on a t.v. tray.

The drawer now holds some of the office supplies.

I gave Cliff a little more workspace by taking a tabletop from IKEA and placing it on top of two filing cabinets (which now hold all the paperwork we had been storing in file boxes) as I had seen here.

To replace the giant whiteboard we had, I bought white tile board from Lowes, had Cliff's dad cut it to the size I needed, and then put it into these frames which I bought on sale at Michaels. They are very similar to regular white boards, but don't erase quite as easily. I would not recommend doing this if you plan on erasing things very frequently. My husband uses them to keep track of his work and he doesn't erase items from the board regularly.

These shelves are perfect for holding his books and multimedia.

Many of the items that had been sitting on the bookcase, were organized by placing them into these labeled boxes that I got from IKEA.

This is the best part. I know my husband is very funny about having cords all over the place, but I wanted to avoid having the printer, mixing board, etc. take up surface space. This little contraption is my version of the recharge station from Pottery Barn's Daily System. After building the box, a hole was drilled in the top, bottom and both sides (matching up to the holes in the adjacent shelves). The cords are threaded through the piping and into the box which holds...

A power strip of course! The plug for the power strip is then pushed through the bottom hole to be plugged into the outlet. There is also a hole on top where Cliff can run a cord to plug in any of his little gadgets like his phone or iPod and they can sit there on the shelf to charge. So... no having numerous cords hanging down the wall and no mess of cords hanging out behind the desk, catching dust bunnies and wrapping themselves around your feet.

A new comfy chair (also from IKEA) was a nice little treat. I think the new curtains add a nice touch. I used a double rod to get the look I wanted. The sheerness of the white curtains lets in light, without making it quite so easy for our neighbors to see inside.

For my husband, my best friend, and the best father I have ever known... Enjoy! I love you so much!

And for the rest of you... thanks for being so patient with me! I hope you have a beautiful week :)