We have a new office!

Here’s the real truth: working from home is hard.

Here’s my old office before baby and after baby.

It sounds like this glamorous dream where you never get out of your PJs or have to leave the house.

But, the new wears off pretty quick!

{I did it for three years. And wrote about my productivity attempts here.}

Anyone I know who works from home successfully DOES NOT stay in their PJs all day.

It’s hard to feel fully-human without putting on shoes during the day!

I would have gone on indefinitely working from my small home office (read: a kitchen table that I used as a desk), but we plumb ran out of room in our house after Joslyn was born.

My desk was in the nursery. John’s desk was in the living room. Our printer and file cabinets where shoved in the closet under our clothes. Our extra supplies were shoved in boxes upstairs and all my books where in totes. Yuck!

So, we spent the late spring and a bit of summer rearranging and building an office space in the back corner of the shop.

Let me tell you, nothing will keep you humble like walking past tractors on your way to your desk!

I’m writing from this new space today and just delighted to be more than five steps away from the refrigerator. (Hello, temptation all. dang. day.)

I feel so “normal” — whatever that is!

Here’s a whole bunch of iPhone pictures of our building process.

We hired just a bit of help for the framing and the electrical, but other than that — we did everything ourselves!

I am very grateful that Ron and John put so many hours into this space, and proud that we could all build something together like this. Joslyn even helped from her stroller and exersaucer.

I read that Rose Wilder Lane (Laura Ingalls Wilder’s daughter, she was also a writer) built and remodeled her own homes and libraries and I thought to myself, “That’s the kind of writer I want to be!”

That’s exactly what we did!

We’re still getting settled in the office. I can’t ever remember which drawer has the stapler and which one has the pencils.