It’s been a rainy couple of days here in Toronto, so we decided to stay in the city for the weekend and finally work on something that we’ve needed since we moved in here.

An office.

We were going back and forth on what room we wanted to make into an office and finally settled on the back room. I had to convince Juli a little, but I knew the southern light exposure and large size of the room would make it into a place we’d like to spend a lot of time. It was hard to take the room seriously because it was painted beige and yellow, and was filled with all of our stuff that didn’t get a home after we made the move back in November. It was going to take a lot of work, and purging to get the room empty and ready for painting.

We were determined to get as much done in one day that we could, so I started painting right away. We’re always amazed at what a couple of coats of white paint can do!

We proceeded to take up the rest of the orange laminate flooring, and had a junk remover take it all away. It feels like such a waste but it’s made with formaldehyde and looks really cheap. Plus it sucks up what little natural light we do have. I’d rather have painted sub floor, or plywood than laminate any day, that way when you do get around to real hardwood you can just install it right over top.

Although it would have made sense to leave the office blinds in the office, they shut out too much light, and are ugly, and stupid, and cheap.

We were so gung ho to get new blinds we took a trip to IKEA to score some Enje blinds (the website claimed they had 2 in stock, though we should have known better considering they haven’t been on shelves ALL summer). No dice. As we returned our accidentally purchased Tuppler blinds, they even went so far to say they might never get them back in! By the way, why on earth was IKEA so rammed on a Monday afternoon–THIRTY PLUS people waiting to return. We were able to go through the entire place AND buy hot dogs before our number was called. NUTS.

Alas, we had to forgo the Enje blinds and simply frost the windows, but in the end it’s nice because we can put a few objects on the window ledge.

Please note the mess on the floor has been cleaned up!

We wanted to try something a little different in the office, and since we have the benefit of lots of natural light we went with glossy black painted floors. This is just one coat in, but it’s looking really great! Please forgive the lack of baseboards, we’ll have to find some time to pick some up…one day…

We’ll have more updates for you this week! Holy mackerel, we’re excited.