New Office Furniture Provides a Much-Needed Fresh Start

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Late last year I was asked a question that transported me straight back to the nine-year-old aspiring author I was, writing furiously at my green desk (which had been crafted by cabinet maker father). I still remember that desk – and the Laminex colour – vividly because so many dreams started in that spot.

What was the question, I hear you ask. “What book has impacted you most?” a fellow writer queried during our writers’ group one month. I thought about the many books I’ve read over the years, and reported back at the next meeting the book that had impacted me most was Anne of Green Gables. My grandmother gave me a copy of each book in the series over many birthdays and I still remember the thrill I felt as I read those pages as a young girl.

I fell in love with Anne the second I met her and thought we were definitely kindred spirits. After all, we were both inconveniently romantic, loved school and had a secret crush on the cute boy in our class, but the most important shared trait was that we both wanted to be writers. Anne’s thoughts and the way she expressed herself spoke to me, and I still find myself drawn to quotes from those L.M. Montgomery books like her take on fresh starts above.

A fresh start is definitely what I needed after the upheaval of moving house/office and recovering from a major foot injury last year. I’ve already written about how I chose “Focus” as my word to help me meet my goals for 2015, but part of this fresh start was finally setting up my office. I spent the second half of 2014 working from our lounge because I had to have my foot up all the time. This meant the room that was supposed to be my office was basically a dumping ground for anything work related, bar my laptop, phone, notepad and a few pens. My comfy leather lounge and foot rest had become my office, but this was not conducive to long-term work or study. Once I could get back to working normally, setting up the office became a priority.

Remember I said my office had become a dumping ground? I really mean that. My desk, the floor, the bookcase and the top of my printer were covered with the piles I tend to create when I’m overwhelmed by too much of anything. There was a work in progress pile for Strawberry Communications work, another for PhD study and a third for creative writing. There was also a selection of cards, letters, notes, pens, notebooks and magazines strewn across the desk and floor. The Strawberry Patch was looking more like Poison Ivy’s lair than a productive work space, so I set about creating the office I had planned before we moved into this lovely new space.

This fresh start for my office involved lots of cleaning, lots of sorting and lots of rubbish removal. But my reward was new office furniture and accessories (in pink of course). As you can see my chair had been reinvented as a scratching post for my cat Stanley, but it had also developed a wobble after many years of use, so a new one was a must. I looked at many office chairs, like these Genius and Zebra ergonomic mesh chairs, and settled on one very much like this Lotus executive chair.

Now I’ve got the comfy chair, ergonomic foot rest (because my foot still has to be elevated) and the pink in trays and pen holders, I’m looking at investing in a new desk. I’m a long way from my green childhood desk now, and have been using a sturdy trestle table as my place to work, study and write. However, after years of dedicated use it, too, is looking a bit worse for wear. I like the space a large desk allows because I can have all I need close by (plus room for the odd pile of papers/magazines/research), so something like this Diamond executive desk or even a Cruze workstation in white would work.

I’ll have to keep you posted on the new desk as my office always seems to be a work in progress, but the Strawberry Patch is looking much more like the place to focus now, don’t you think?

What piece of furniture have you used to create a fresh start in your office?

This post was sponsored by Equip Office Furniture, however all comments (and the childhood aspirations) are my own.