1. You can make your own rules.
2. You can get inside the heads of all sorts of characters.
3. You can do it almost anywhere.
4. You can give people something unique to enjoy.
5. Limits only exist in your own mind.
6. You can get paid for daydreaming.
7. You meet some of the nicest people as an author.
8. There are no “office hours” unless you set them yourself.
9. You learn by doing.
10. You can put all those English classes to use.
11. You don’t have to wait for someone else to tell the story you want to hear.
12. The only “correct” way to approach writing is the one that works for you.
13. The huge sense of accomplishment when you can type “The End”.

One thing I’ve come to realize over the last year or so is that I NEED my own office. We have a shared computer room (myself, my husband and our nine year old) but it has two problems with it. One is that it’s crowded and I have a pretty small little computer desk to work off of. The other is that the two men TALK to me, their computers and each other incessantly. They do things like insist that I come look at something on their computer or listen to something and get annoyed if I ignore them. No matter how many times I try to impress on them the fact that I need them to leave me alone to write, they can’t do it.

The other place I tend to work is on the sofa downstairs on my laptop and that’s okay-ish while I’m home alone, but it shares some of the same problems as the computer room — the men and their inability to leave me alone :)

Now I have tried to go to whichever room they are not in but they follow me. It’s a bit like a psychic call or something. No matter what they were doing that I thought would keep them in the prior room for a while, they somehow NEED to come to the room I’m in and stay there.

I decided about a year ago that I needed my own office but it’s taken me this long to as far as I have as of this last weekend. My oldest son is moved out and his room is larger than Minion’s, so we decided to move Minion to the larger bedroom and I’d claim his old room for my office. Great idea – the issue was finding time and energy to execute on it. I knew I wanted something calming, peaceful and a bit girlie but which would inspire writing and some focus (so no TV or such in there).

In the process of furniture hunting for just the right desk, I’d fallen in love with the Christoper Lowell Shore collection of office furniture but, true to my usual luck, it appears they are phasing it out. This DID get me to work hard on the room and I bought the pieces I could find easily before the room was even really started. These are now on my porch in boxes, awaiting my being ready to assemble them. I liked the antiqued white with cherry tops. The pictures below are courtesy of the Office Depot website (where I bought them from). I got the Executive Desk, the Computer Credenza and a small bookcase.

I also bought a large bookcase/storage piece from Ikea to provide more storage for books and supplies. This picture is courtesy of Ikea’s website:

I have green bins to put in about half the cubbies. The rest will have books and decorative things in them (at least that’s the plan). Yes, I know this piece is true white instead of the antiqued white of the desks but I also wanted to have a bit of an eclectic mix in the room so I wouldn’t have the matchy-matchy look that seemed too much like set dressing. With these pieces of furniture in mind, I went on the hunt for a paint scheme I liked and which would compliment the furniture.

This smaller bedroom had been painted to be a lively nursery with bright yellow walls and a dark blue ceiling, all stamped with suns, moons and stars. Fun nursery theme and it lasted Minion over eight years, so it was a success – but it’s not a calm or peaceful writing nest scheme. Just to test things out, I bought samples of the paints colors I thought I wanted and painted a corner of the room with them since that corner had ceiling, wall and trim in one smallish area. I liked it and BFF Jo did, too.

I finally got it painted over the long weekend with the help of BFF Jo. The room now has a light sage ceiling, darker sage walls and white trim. I can highly recommend the Behr Premium Plus Ultra paint + primer. In case you want to look up the colors on the Behr website, the ceiling is Whitened Sage, the walls are Environmental and the trim is Pillar White. The paint covered really well and was remarkably non-stinky to boot.

Last week, with an idea of colors, I went looking for a lighting fixture for the room as well. I originally thought I wanted a chandelier but could not find one I liked and which would work in the space. The ceiling isn’t all that high and the fixture is in the middle of the room. I certainly didn’t want a goose egg if I forgot to duck. I finally discarded what I thought I wanted and just poked around until I found this on the Lamps Plus website (photo courtesy of Lamps Plus and I did buy my fixture from them):

Not what I thought I wanted but I fell in love and isn’t it the perfect bit of whimsy for a writer’s nest? It’s really bright if it’s on full but there’s a dimmer in this room anyway and I don’t like a lot of overhead light when I’m on the computer. So it’s ambiance and general room lighting. I plan to have several lamps for task lighting.

Right now the nest is waiting for my husband to put up the new baseboard molding and put in my network wiring for me, then I’ll be able to take down all the plastic drop cloths and start putting furniture together. I can’t wait!

I’ll try to take pictures once it’s set up so you all can see it.