“Office-ing” this morning in the livingroom (a communal space that has also served as sleeping area for 4 or more spontaneous guests).
Soft cloudy morning with tapering-off sprinkles from last night’s big rain; sun-exclusion curtain pulled back a bit to allow just the perfect amount of light, and such a lovely atmosphere for having my coffee and easing into tasks. I sit on the floor and recline against the pillows.
Photos here on my deep green Facebook page.
For those of you who can’t access the photos, a brief description: the living room is done mostly in whites and light beiges.
The effect is soft and casual rather than formal. Even despite the very light color note. There’s also a mantle piece that used to go to it where the fireplace used to be, and I have cool old little antique bottles arranged in little clusters / vignettes on the mantlepiece.
It’s almost all old used furniture, a combination of white plastic chairs and wooden chairs. Also, very large beanbag furniture forms an L.
The beanbags (one of the very few things I purchased new, when I first moved into the house) are meant to open out into queen size beds on the floor, or a person can just simply sleep on one of the beanbags as is, a thing I have often done. The versatile bean bags are from Cordaroys of Gainesville Florida. https://cordaroys.com
Also worthy of note is that our refrigerator is in the living room. It’s white, with the door handles painted a cute pale beachy aqua color.
The living room turned out to be a great location for the fridge, very central. And this room stays cooler in summer than the kitchen does, as the kitchen gets a slanted bit of the northwest afternoon sun. that said, the reason originally that the fridge ended up being in the living room is that this giant fridge that was given to me by neighbors who bought a new one, we just couldn’t fit it all the way through the hallway into the kitchen. We even had a hard time getting it into the house at all. I think it’s actually probably a normal size USA American fridge but it looks huge to me. It doesn’t seem to use a huge amount of electricity though, and it’s easy to share among three (or with recent insights such as adding little tote bin drawers) I believe even six people.
Regarding officing in common areas, one of my favorite protocols I’ve developed for the house is that each person can office or otherwise hang out anywhere, as long as they tote their personal stuff in their own little caddy.
Of course when a person is sitting there for a while, as I am now, their coffee cup, notebook, and whatever other personal things might be arranged on a floor or table next to them.
But when we leave a common area, we pack our things into our caddy and return it into our respective personal spaces (the space where our clothes and bedding are).
(Note, we don’t have to pack up our caddies if we’re just going to the toilet or just going to grab some hot water or a snack or something. People do get to relax and enjoy the common areas without being too uptight, but the casdy system is very helpful and practical for encouraging a mind-set of considerateness and neatness.)
My personal caddy is a very sturdy white-with-navy-trim canvas bag that was originally a “gimme” from a law firm where my sister worked. She gave it to me as a gift some years back, and I have loved and cherished it and repeatedly mended it over the years. It is just one of the handiest things ever in my life, with this little front pocket and its big sturdy self. I love it when something has great practical value along with the deep sentimental value.