I did a thing! Look at this thing I did!

Let’s subject you to ill-lit and shot iPhone photographs of this thing I did, because I feel immensely fabulous about it and need the mighty approval of The Internets slapping me on the back as well.

We had a door in our basement. It used to sit between the kitchen and side door, but was taken down years ago, I imagine because it was completely useless. So we discovered it sitting downstairs and it looked like this.

Now most ordinary, foolish, idiot people would say to themselves, “Huh. That’s an old door.” but not me. Because you see, I have Pinterest. And I pinned a pin from a pinner years ago that looked like this:

and although my door is nowhere near as rustic or, well, Pinterest-y as that door (it has to be some variation on robin’s egg blue to be Pinterest-y, I think. Or involve mason jars or pallets somehow. This door failed on all three fronts.)

I still knew that this door could become a desk. So I stripped it of all its hardware and got down to business.

I had also happened across this photo, in my travels.

And I even already had a globe – a French globe, $7 from Value Village.

So now we had the recipe, Pinterest door desk + Pinterest yellow filing cabinet + Madeleine =

    

BOOM! Look at that poorly lit, pixelated glory! (So sorry – my camera is MIA at the moment)

The how: I spray painted our old beat-up black filing cabinet that we’ve had since Adam’s university days (Rustoleum sun yellow. Recycle the canister when you’re done!), and I painted the door BM Simply White, because it’s what we had on hand for our trim (I actually painted it white about eight times. The first four with homemade chalk paint, which failed to live up to the savaging from electricians working on our house, and so I peeled the rest of it off, and did it PROPERLY, by priming and painting it again.)

The filing cabinet forms one leg, and a trestle leg from IKEA forms the other, and also serves as a handy little shelf for our printer. I use my old Samsonite train case as a place to corral thank-you notes, pens, clips, and all manner of whats-its.

The hole where the doorknob used to be is perfect for cords, and I wasn’t too worried about the hinge cutouts on the front lip. It’s a door. I mean, that’s the cool part, right? So why hide it?

Anyway. That’s a thing I did. This is a thing Adam did

He used wood that formed the wood valance in our living room and cut it down to re-purpose the old ironing board cupboard in our kitchen into a spice rack. He cut each piece a tiny bit too long and then tapped them into place with a hammer to secure them in place, so we didn’t need to use brackets to support them underneath.

Aaaaand this is a thing Olive did

First haircut! It really doesn’t look much different, but they lopped off about 1.5 inches and trimmed everything up so she looks less Phillip Seymour Hoffman/Chris Farley-esque (may they both rest in peace.)

I have a real post coming up, with thoughts. Deeper than desks and haircuts. I am just finding it tough to write lately. My energy is being spent elsewhere and I’m trying to build it up again while also avoiding The Migraines – thank you so much to everyone who offered advice on that front, by the way.

We celebrated Thanksgiving in Canada on Monday – and I have so much to be thankful for. My little office is the least of it, but I am so thankful to have a dedicated writing space for the first time ever nonetheless.