welcome to my office

Of all the posts I've posted over the past year (August marked one year of blogging!), this may just be my favorite of all. I started my blog half way through grad school. At that point, I was 5 years into working towards my goal of being a school speech-language pathologist. With grad school now complete, I am so excited and proud to share my first office! I wrote yesterday about how I had gotten started last week, and today I just about finished up. I was lucky enough to walk into a room that was sparkling clean (seriously, the floors are SHINY! Best school custodians ever! I love them!), however the available storage was stuffed with things dating 1992. AKA, time for the cabinets and shelves to be purged! As for the charm and inviting details any elementary setting should have? There was none. Luckily I was more than happy to provide it with some :-)


Here was my office when I walked in for the first time last Tuesday

Before

And here it is now:

After

While I didn't take many before pictures from other angles, imagine lots more boring beige and stacks of clutter as the before, and these as the after:

an open book shelf on the right, and a closed on the left

I used velcro and green fabric to conceal therapy materials when they're not in use

easy access, but much less visual clutter!

I also brought in this rug, which once was in my kitchen. It's colorful and makes the space a little more home-y.

The cabinets below the sink provide AWESOME storage now that they are emptied out.

I bought this adorable hand embroidered clock from the salvation army for $5 over the summer. It's all ready for a clock kit, which I need to buy so I can put it together and replace the boring one on the wall now.

The birthday door. Behind the door is a bathroom, which is perhaps the most exciting part of my office!

 I scoped out these tables in a storage room and I think they're going to work great. The awesome building custodians brought them in and set them up once I had decided on them. Have I mentioned that I love our custodians? :-) The round table that was in there only allowed three chairs due to super wide legs, wouldn't allow me to get close up to the students, and was wasted space since I couldn't push it against the wall.

The "ready to learn" girl was a creation based on some ideas I put together from Pinterest, random wall hangings that were in the room when I got there, and polka dot fabric attached to the wall with velcro. She's holding a "Speech and Language Home Practice Folder", just like the kids will have :-)

 

My desk

I added fabric to the bulletin board behind my desk for a pop of color that won't crinkle or fall down all year :-)  My desk is really old but I love it. Lots of character!

 

Thank you notes from my internship, and of course, Mango

flowers from my dad for my first day :-)

So that's the room so far! I still have a few touches I'd like to add. I'd really like a lamp or two so I can avoid overhead light as much as possible, and have some plans to add pictures of the kids to the walls once I start seeing them. I'm looking forward to an amazing year of growth and learning in this space!