Previously I wrote a post about the dry-erase board that now hangs on our fridge. The purpose of which was to allow Nicole and I to jot down three and only three things we’d like the other to do so we could set expectations and help each other out with chores, study time, blogging, etc. One of the first things I’d written down for myself on the board was to clean out our unfinished storage area (or laundry room for those of you far less fancy).

Initially I avoided it like the plague because with all of the ‘stuff’ in there I didn’t much feel like organizing/cleaning it again after letting it drop into decay once more as the ‘dump room’ where all of our random crap got shoved. But, in the end I sucked it up and got to work and eventually found that with a little effort, the entire room could serve a new purpose as a makeshift writing/thinking space.

While everything in that picture above looks neat and tidy, it certainly DID take a while to get there, but now that it’s set up Nicole and I agreed to make it a space where either of us could go for some alone time. The only real ‘rule’ if you can call it that would be that whoever leaves the space has to leave it the way they found it.

Even with only a folding table and my rickety old office chair it’s turned out to be a perfectly usable space for things like:

-Painting
-Reading
-Writing
-Blogging
-Organizing
-Hatching World Domination Plans

I’ve actually taken quite a fondness to it for writing, taking into it only my bluetooth wireless keyboard, iPad, and a set of headphones. Granted, being unfinished and all it’s a bit of an eyesore, but I find that fact (and the single-tasking nature of the iPad) to make it very, very productive.

The moral? Take a good hard look at what you’ve already got before looking to acquire something new for your needs.