With individuals working from home and/or virtual schooling having functional spaces is more important than ever. For many a functional home office has been key when trying to keep things together over the last 10 months, and recently,  I had the opportunity to work with a wonderful family to completely overhaul this office space and ultimately transform an underutilized room to make it function for this family and their needs.

We had 3 key goals for this space:

• Create a work from home setup
• Incorporate kids’ workstations
• Design an open space, but store needed files and supplies

The problems with the space should be apparent to anyone trying to work from home and homeschool but specifically when this family moved in a few years ago this small room inherited some oversized office furniture that overwhelmed the space and this room quickly became the unused dumping ground for paper clutter, school work, crafts, technology, photos, and sports memorabilia.

However, as Angela was told working from home would continue through the 1st of the year and the need for a schooling workspace became apparent, my help was requested and we set out on our transformation efforts.

Our first order of business was to clear out pieces that ended up in the room by default and decide to keep, trash or donate. Some of the original pieces were able to be utilized elsewhere such as picture frames, whereas office supplies simply needed a good sort and dedicated and labeled space.

Second, all unneeded furniture was cleared out and sold through Facebook marketplace. We were able to repurpose the wooden table that was handmade for the homeowner – it became the perfect spot for large printers and storage for gift wrap.

Then to my favorite part – the redesign and build!

To create a more functional space I visited my beloved IKEA (IKEA US – Furniture and Home Furnishings – IKEA); we used a Kallax Workstation for our main center piece and anchored it with a file cabinet. Then added a butcher block counter to create the long desk spaces across the wall and added another file cabinet to provide needed files with a home – this allowed us to move from a cramped workspace to over 10 feet of usable surface!

Once the room was cleaned and the furniture in place the big sort began. Going through files and piles of paper are often the hardest part of a sort and although I recommend doing a thorough clean out every year, or at max 3 years I know it’s easy to put this off because it’s hard to let some things go as I’m not always the best at this but yes, as I remind myself, it is ok to get rid of your hospital discharge papers for your 10-year-old!

The first big sort can be overwhelming, but once you get a good filing system it is much easier to maintain, and sometimes the trick is to not let things come in so you don’t have to sort out later. We used the file cabinet closest to the main workstation for files that need the easiest access: bills, banking, health, and a tax prep folder to corral documents as they come in. The second filing cabinet at the end of the kid’s workstation we used for items that could be more tucked away such as old tax documents, insurance policies, etc.

When organizing I suggest starting with all new folders, it makes a huge difference in the look and flow when the task is complete, and who doesn’t love new office supplies?!? For this project we used multicolored jewel tones (Amazon.com : Amazon Basics Hanging Folders, Letter Size, Jewel-Tone Colors (Assorted), 25-Pack : Office Products) and used the different colors to indicate the different categories of paperwork. It is a cost-effective way to make a big difference and adds fun pops of color in hidden spaces.

I also spent quite a bit of time going through each item, sorting and finding a labeled home for miscellaneous pieces, especially the cords!

The final step was to bring in décor that brings you joy. For this project we were able to incorporate much of what the homeowner already had, some with great sentiment, and then added a few extra pops of color to revitalize the space.

This once underutilized room is now a multifunctional work space and a hub for daily activity!