A Peek into all our Office Storage

It’s been four years since we first walked through our house and from the very first showing, I had a vision for our home office. The room had no permanent storage, but I envisioned built-in bookcases along one wall and was so glad to bring that vision to life back in 2020. We have SO much storage space now and today I wanted to take a look at all the ways I utilize different types of storage in this room.

My desk has two small drawers that house basically what you would expect to find in a desk: notepads and sticky notes in one drawer and office-y bits and bobs (rubber bands, paper clips, binder clips, erasers, flash drives, etc) in the other. These are the things I’m often reaching for throughout the day as I work from home.

When designing the built-ins, I knew I had the option to do floor-to-ceiling bookshelves a la Beauty and the Beast, but I also knew that having some closed storage for my family was crucial. Utilizing cabinets on the bottom half was a game changer for our home’s organization!

I store typical office supplies like our printer, paper, notebooks, folders, and cords in the cabinets but they also house a lot of random things like construction paper and tubs of art supplies, my paint swatch decks and wallpaper samples, computer bags and tripods, and all of our family’s many, many games.

I originally wanted all the cabinets to have shelves and doors but we used Ikea cabinets and I couldn’t get a configuration to work in the allotted space. I had to pivot and include a set of drawers in the middle, which ultimately worked out better than all doors anyways! I love having a set of drawers to easily store things like my office backstock (rolls of tape, extra sticky notes and paperclips, etc), my stapler, all our batteries, command strips, envelopes, labels, etc. I’m so thankful for the drawers!

In addition to holding all my books, I also wanted to utilize the open shelves for beautiful and functional storage. Some items, like my spare buttons and calligraphy utensils, are stored in simple glass jars and are out on display. I have a little utensil holder for easy access to all my pens, pencils, and a few notebooks and also have black stacked paper holders to house school papers.

For not-so-display-worthy items, I rely on storage boxes.

I have all my permanent markers hidden in this pretty white box out of the reach of little hands. It’s stacked on top of another, larger box filled with all my sewing supplies.

This woven basket box houses all the greeting cards I have on hand. Several years ago I made some simple dividers to categorize the stash and they make it so easy to grab a card for the right occasion!

I also have some sneaky hidden storage. Tucked behind a large art print are utilitarian things like scissors and a tape dispenser, plus a pottery bowl filled with the little knick-knacks my kids pick up as birthday party favors, arcade game prizes, school holiday toys, etc.

These trinkets cause SO much clutter in my house; my kids bring them home and love playing with them for a few days, then lose interest and my house is littered with tiny toys. When that happens, I just quietly pick them up and dump them in this bowl. I can still “find” them if my kids ask or start to look for them, but they’re also out of sight, out of mind, and my kids usually end up forgetting about them.

Once the bowl gets full, I donate the trinkets to LJ’s previous preschool teacher to use in her prize box so they can have new life in someone else’s house. For the record, my kids almost never look for the toys after I put them in the bowl – easy come, easy go!

It’s hard to imagine our home without the office now. It’s such a great space for keeping our things stored and organized, which allows the rest of the house to stay streamlined with way less clutter around. It’s an all-star of a room for sure!