From this ...

... to this ...

... in just a weekend. Mind you, I can hardly move today as my back is aching but it was worth it. 

I've evicted DH from his office, if you can call it that, and replaced all the dusty cupboards, junk and ancient paperwork with some (ancient but still serviceable) Ikea storage cubes and the old desk from my scrap room. This is my new 'Tutor Room' as I now like to call it, ready and waiting for my pupils to arrive for the new Autumn term.

I absolutely adore it and it has the best view in the house. I can "yoo- hoo" down to postie when he arrives with a pizza box shaped parcel of scrapbooking stash. It looks out onto trees and the goings on in the road at the front of our house.

The best bit about it is that it's all sourced from furniture culled from just about every room in the house so it hasn't cost a penny. The Ikea storage cubes were probably the forerunner to the ubiquitous Expedit cabinets. I think they count as 'vintage' Ikea - no doubt they'll be appearing on ebay and year now marked up as "rare' ... then again maybe not. These seem to have stood the test of time, unlike a lot of other Ikea stuff that seems to have a built-in obsolescence factor of about 5 years.

The desk is also ancient Ikea and almost fills the room which is tiny but it works perfectly. From my ( also ancient Ikea ) swivel chair I can spin round and access all of my teaching resources that are now neatly stashed away in labelled storage boxes, or reach up and access all of my books and paperwork on the 2 shelves above. The carpet is pretty shot but then you can hardly see any of it underfoot as the furniture covers almost every available square inch ( you can tell I'm old school ) .

The walls are painted in my favourite Farrow and Ball hue called Bone and the lamps make it really cosy. Haven't filled up the shelves yet as you can see from the photos but that won't take long.

I had my first pupil in this morning and the room worked a treat. 

Of course the best news is that I can now go splurge on a replacement desk for my scrap room. I'm planning on having a raised height bench, almost like a kitchen work-top as I like to scrap standing up. My poor old scrap room looks like a tip now and DH is now squeezed into an even smaller box room upstairs but as he only needed room for a small desk and a filing cabinet, he's happy enough.