In the boy’s bedroom they have an entire wall of closet.  Like two side by side closets.  Yes, taking up an entire wall in thier room!  Great for woman, not great for two little boys who need every inch of thier room.  I decided to dedicate one of those closet spaces to a office nook for Ezra.  Here is a pic just after we removed the closet doors and cleaned it out.  Looked pretty blah, but better than it did before as a closet, trust me.

I went to work removing the closet doors and painting the closet to match the room.  But it left a huge open space in between the two closets.  Sigh.  What a wierd design!  I had the great idea to build an open type shelf in between the two that could be accessed from the closet side or the office side.  My awesome husband went to town measuring and cutting and we ended up with this awesome shelf.  Exactly what I had imagined! 

Here you can see through to the other closet that is still fully functional, clothing and all. 

I had some old cd organizers that were given to me.  I painted them blue and piled them full of items that desperately needed organized. Play-Dough, Bubbles, Cds, computer games,  Stamps,  you know all of those things that are hard to give a home to because they are so random.  On the bottom shelf I filled it with board books since it was the only shelf Lucas could reach.  I filled up some old planters with markers, crayons and paintbrushes and painted them white.

I then again enlisted my super fantastic husband to build some more shelves, this time in a cube fashion.  This space still needed a little something and alot more organization.  I looked around at prebuilt units and decided that I wanted something built in rather than just a store bought shelf in case someone tried to climb them (like my toddler). Not to mention that it was about half the price to build something ourselves.   They turned out perfect, again! 

I furnished them with some red and brown fabric bins from Target ( I love love love Target).  In these we have papers, science kits, and many other miscelaneous items that needed to be stored away.  Yay for hiding away clutter.

So here is what we have now.  We are still working on the organization aspect and deciding what color to finish the desk in, white, blue, stripes?  But I think the space really lends itself well to an office nook for Ezra and look how clean he has been keeping the inside of his desk!  Ah-maz-ing!

We gave him a little bulletin board which he quickly adorned with pictures of family and friends.  There is just enough room for him to put up school reminders.  Perfect!

Here is a side by side of how messy his desk was before and how clean he has been keeping it.  It is all in the motivation and presentation here people!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now that it is all cleaned out he can actually use his laptop to play games. 

I am personally amazed by what a big impact this one small change has done for thier entire room.  It feels much more spacious and works well.  Although we did lose some of the closet space, it was not necessary closet space.  They still have a full closet at their disposal for clothing, and look at all that unused available space on the top shelf that I can use for craft supplies and many many other items I am sure.  So excited!

I cannot take the credit for the idea of the closet office nook completely.  Although I had always wanted to reclaim some of that closet space seeing this post by Jen at IHeart Organizing gave me the little push to do it.  Her office puts my little nook to shame because it is so super cute.  Check it out if you get a chance!