Home Office/Craft Room Organizing

Our bathroom renovation has been kind of all-consuming these past couple of weeks, but I did get one evening off from bathroom stuff, while we waited for the asbestos test results on our vinyl flooring to come back.

So I took full advantage of the break to work on something with a little quicker payoff, my first steps at getting my home office/craft space organized!

This is what it had been looking like since we moved in, cluttered, with opened boxes of craft supplies on the floor that I've been rummaging through, making things messier and messier.

Sewing machine hogging my cutting mat space, and yes, I was even using a table lamp to precariously hold my x-acto knife. All I'd really done with this space so far was to paint the walls and trim, set up my desks, and just kind of live out of moving boxes.

(Sorry for the darkness of the above two photos, they were taken during a brief mid-day power outage we had--gotta take advantage of down time from work any way I can with as busy as I've been lately!)

Home Office: The Budget

So now that you've seen the progress I've made on my home office, I thought I'd share the budget breakdown with you!

1. Small Bookcase: $39.99
2. Basket: $12.99 x 2
3. Large Boxes: $12.99 for 2
4. Chair: $149.95 (was on sale from $199)
5. Floor Lamp: $59.99
6. Corner Table Top: $39.99
7. Drawer Unit: $79.99
8. Waste Basket: $9.99
9. Magazine Rack: $9.99 x 2
10. Side Table Top: $39.99 x 2
11. Table Lamp: $39.99 x 2
12. Small Boxes: $4.99 for 2
13. Shelf Unit: $40.00
14. Table Leg: $15.00 x 9
15. Plastic Chair Mat: $39.95

Grand total:  $818.75

Yikes! Well, that's a good chunk of change once I add it all up!

I do feel like got a whole lot of stuff for my money, especially considering the first desk I'd liked was almost $800 by itself. But who knew I would need to spend $135 on just table legs?  At least it was definitely worth it to spend a little on the desk chair, my most expensive item. Being comfortable in something you sit in hours upon hours each day is important!

I'm just glad this really expensive chair from my inspiration board turned out to be so uncomfortable, or my budget would have surpassed the $1k mark!

Super cute chair, but OMG, SO uncomfortable!

So there you have it, the budget. Or, er, what I paid, since I didn't really set myself a budget before shopping. And since I spent so much, I'm even more determined to not spend any more on this room for a while!

Do you usually make a budget before purchasing new furniture, or do you just look for good prices for what you know you need?