Meant To Be

The moment I stepped foot in this room when I checked out our new house for the first time with my parents and my friend Allyson (who was also my realtor — AND THE FORKING BEST REALTOR IN THE WORLD)…

I knew.

I knew this was going to be my new home, and I knew this was my new office.

I visualized the fucking shit out of this office.

I visualized myself sitting where I am sitting as I type this, with a fire burning in the fireplace (which there is) as I look out the window into the woods (which I am).

Here’s what it looked like that first time. There was snow on the ground and the cabin-y feel of the room (even though I was seriously anti-pine paneling initially) was warm and cozy.At first I pictured a white, bright, super feminine office. I was going to cover everything in white paint.

But after painting a few million square feet of the world’s darkest, roughest, and hardest to paint, super brown paneling from hell down on the bottom floor of the house, I decided to embrace my inner pine paneling.

I loved this room so much I slept in here on a mattress on the floor the night after we closed.

I set up my grandmother’s dining room table as my desk, and I had my laptop and whatever I needed to be able to work, and I got the FUCK out of the house I’d been living in with my ex-husband for the entire duration of the fifteen month divorce process (and then two more  months living together after it was finalized).

I had to get into my own space.

And when I did, it was MAGICAL.

FUCKING MAGICAL.

Slowly but surely the office has been evolving.

To this:

And this, from the other side, behind the desk.

To this:

I had planned to make this corner my reading corner and surround myself with plants.

But I had also learned I was receiving a gift.

A very good friend of mine, Kelly, who owns a furniture refinishing business called Hi Valley Home and who is extremely talented – seriously check out her stuff!!! – was giving me a desk that she had refinished. She wanted me to have a new desk for my new office.

But it was being shipped from Canada.

That’s not cheap.

So all the amazing women in E-School chipped in to pay to have it shipped to my house, and after several COVID-related delays, the desk finally arrived this past Wednesday.

Here’s a picture of my awesome new desk:

But the desk has a story.

Kelly got the desk from a woman who owned a shop, and she was closing it due to COVID. She was getting rid of the desk and she sold it to Kelly for $20.

The woman used this desk as her office desk, and it was built by her father-in-law.

Her was a master carpenter.

A master carpenter who was captured by the Russians during WWII when he was 17 and spent the duration of the war as a prisoner.

His skill as a carpenter kept him alive.

And my desk was built by him.

That’s a pretty cool story.

Anyway, the desk arrived in the back of a truck being driven by a Canadian husband and wife who do this kind of thing for a living. And the husband, in shorts and flip flops , got that thing out of the truck and (with the help of my dad) into my house, and now it’s in my new office.

But there was a problem.

I didn’t want to get rid of my grandmother’s dining room table. The one I’d been using as my desk.

I wanted to keep it. But I didn’t have a great place to put it.

Then my mom made a suggestion.

And this corner went from this:

To this:

And my desk area went from this:

To this:

Originally I kind of wanted to keep this room kid-free, but after moving my g-ma’s table to its new spot, I like this view:

Now it’s a family office.

And it was built piece by piece and bit-by-bit by my family and my friends.

All the important people in my life are a part of this office.

Good things have already happened here in this room.

And I know with 100% certainty that GREAT things are not too far off.