Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Office Makeover: First Steps

Blogging about the office has lit a fire under my arse, so yesterday I set to getting started on transforming our office space.

First step: more storage. My easy fix? Ikea's iconic favorite, the Billy bookcase. I don't mind a little Ikea in my life when it comes to something functional and simple, like a bookcase. Until I have the money to have custom shelving built into our library walls, good ol' Billy will have to do. I generally like Expedit's modern see-through shelving better, but since the beau already had a Billy, we decided to buy a second one to hold all my books (On my cross-country move from NYC, I brought only the boring/functional* ones with me; it pains me to think of my well-loved copies of poetry books sitting in a box in my parents' New Jersey basement, collecting dust and cricket corpses).


*"Functional" meaning books Michael Shurtleff's "Audition," Scott Sedita's "Making it in Hollywood," Blake Snyder's "Save the Cat," and "21 Day Hikes Around Los Angeles"; should anyone ever judge me by my bookshelf here, I'm afraid I've become an LA douchebag.

Hello, my name is Billy.


Sadly, Ikea has reportedly changed the shape of the classic Billy bookcase to fit e-readers and that kind of crap. I love the feel of pages in my hands, and I'm not switching over to Kindles or e-readers anytime soon; they'll have to pry the book out of my dead, cold hands. Or at least until somebody buys me a kindle.

Second step: Better chair. I spend a lot of time at my desk and I have horrible desk posture. It's amazing that my spine hasn't curved into a hunchback already from hours of staring at my computer. I scoured Craigslist and found this Zuo Modern high-backed director's chair, originally priced at $599, for $200. It reminded me a little bit of some mod 1960s ad agency a la Mad Men (more Bert Cooper than Donald Draper), so I decided to go for it. Bargained it down to $150, zoomed right over to Playa del Rey after a pilot audition* in Manhattan Beach to pick it up, and prayed I wouldn't be hog-tied and murdered by the seller, who turned out to be a perfectly nice guy from Ohio. Brought my new bounty home:

*Had to dress as a stripper/prostitute for the pilot audition; swapped out the pink velour Juicy Couture for my regular army jacket to minimize likelihood of aforementioned hog-tying and murdering.

Behold! Our Overlord has arrived!

And last of all, a new aqua chevron rug:


How will it come together? The suspense is killing me!

On a side note, I also picked up these amazing/gaudy/awesome shoes yesterday as part of my audition costume:

6 comments:

  1. love the chair and the rug and the shoes. don't you always dress like a stripper/prostitute?

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  2. speaking of stripper/prostitutes, i thought of you & all your leopard-print paraphernalia when i bought these shoes, @braids.

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  3. my mother in law bought me a velour leopard print... um, muumuu-type-lounging-robe for christmas, so I think i've unfortunately set myself up...

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  4. Interesting and entertaining piece! No doubt designing office spaces can be quite a feat but you make it sound simple. Thank you for sharing!

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