My $3 Home Office Makeover

After reading 6 Tips for Designing a Cheery Home Workspace, I looked at my "home office" and realized I need some color and organization on my desk.  Although I don't actually work from home, as a full-time graduate student, I spend a lot of time writing and reading at my desk.

When I took a hard look at my desk, I realized how little workspace I actually had.

 

As you can see, it is lacking color, organization, and my post-it notes hanging on the wall are not exactly classy.  But I don't have money to spend on revamping my work area, so I decided to see what I could do with what I already had.

The first stage was de-cluttering.  I took the non-essential items off of my desk and into the rolling cart I have next to my desk (from my teaching days).

The rest of my papers went into my desk drawers, which were also cleaned out and reorganized.     

Next, some color was needed.  I started by looking for colorful things that I already had on my desk that I use as more prominent centerpieces.

After cleaning up my desk, moving things off, and pulling a few more colorful items that I had around the house, I came up with this:

 The last step was where my $3 renovation came in.  I purchased two black frames from the Dollar Tree, filled them with two inspirational quotes from Pinterest, and hung them up with picture hanging supplies that I also got from the Dollar store.  All together, this is what I came up with!

I'm enjoying my clean, organized, and colorful desk already!