The Inner Sanctum

When we moved to central Pennsylvania last summer, there was a spare bedroom that we identified as my office. The whole house needed a fairly serious cosmetic make over, and I can’t tell you how excited I was to basically imagine my work space from the ground up.

I know not everyone likes this green, or how much of it there is, but I love it. I feel comfortable surrounded by it. I worked like this for months, surrounded by stacked boxes, and having to shoo away one of our cats who wanted nothing more than to mark this room as hers.

The new green paint was there on the walls to encourage me to think about how the office would and could look, as soon as I got off my ass and did something about it. But, man, moving is exhausting in all sorts of different ways. But when I finally got around to transforming this room, I was so excited to see it come together.

After months of various home improvement tasks, it was time to lay down new floors in my office and a couple other rooms. I had only done this sort of thing once before in a small hallway, but I think they turned out pretty nice. Way WAY better than the previous low-pile, deep padded, heavily trafficked carpet.

Here is all the furniture except for the bookshelves. The green is comforting to me, but the books…oh, the books.

This is the lived-in version with books, and rug, and various tid bits that have yet to find permanent homes.

The long Ikea desk is the centerpiece in terms of furniture. Being able to have a permanent typing desk right next to my iMac workstation is just heaven. I know it’s a portable typewriter, but working at the dining room table was a bit of a hassle for everyone involved. And for those of you wondering, that typewriter is not for show. I have written three book-length manuscripts on it. The printer also has a document feed scanner, so I can type for a day, scan the pages, and have both a PDF and a text file in minutes.

This print hangs right above my reading chair. I can’t begin to tell you how much joy this print brings me. It’s a brilliant piece of art that pays tribute to another brilliant piece of art.

It’s been almost a year, and the office is finally complete. In my experience, that is faster than I have ever been able to effectively organize and decorate a work space. I have already done plenty of work of which I am very proud in this room: a new novel draft, a short screenplay, a feature, a couple more treatments. I’m eager for the projects yet to come, too.

I already need more shelves, though…