Sandra,

little yeloe sticky-paper notes around my screen

How could I have forgotten to include those in my description?!?!?!? Yes, I have given up the appointment book, and all my promises are on the tiniest yellow stickies available.

Thanks for the long description-- I can actually SEE it in my mind!

To the left of the leftside cubbies is a tall storage section, which is two more of those three-hole cubbies (stacked) with a shelf stacked on top of those. Lower cubbies hold office supplies and some hibernating projects (standing up in cardboard office-supply file-holders). Shelves, music binders in current work/use on lower shelf, and mementoes on the upper shelves. This puts the binders in easy reach of the autoharp/arranging table, because it's perpendicular to that making an L-shape. The CPU sits between that cubby/shelf system on a base Hardi made me with pretty, cabriolesque legs. He made bases with the same legs for the wing-cubbies as well, because the heat runs along the baseboard, below. These clever bases let the heat out, as well as putting the cubbies at the right height to reach from the desk chair. They fit neatly under the windows. And because they are on top of the protruding baseboard heat, they only stick out about 12" from the walls.

The desk itself is quite strange-- two entirely separate pieces. The rear piece is the ash/poplar corner item Hardi made to requested dimensions, and holds the monitor and lamps. The keyboard is on top of an old top-opening desk we picked up at a second-hand store, and it used to be my autoharp table. It has storage below the lift-top and a second storage space under the rear non-lifting panel. This whole keyboard-carrying unit slides forward or backwards under the front of the rear item, so that monitor distance is easily managed for visitors and my changing eyeballs. It also determines the color scheme, being wood in some parts and white laminate in others. All the cubbies are white laminate.

Now the cubbies themselves are wonderful. Any home-improvement or K-Mart has them (closet organizers), and we modified them. I started using them vertically in my Red Cross office to hold materials pertinent to the five distinct lines of service Red Cross involves. Then they became committee cubbies for the leadership we were developing-- like a mail center where I could direct mail and files to the various groups coming into viability. I'd bought 'em myself, so when I left, I took them!

They needed an end boxed in, and backs, to be structurally workable on their sides. Hardi cut those to my measurements; we assembled them and I painted them matching, glossy white. In another application they could be small, low windowseat benches. The ones under the shelf unit are holding several hundred pounds, I imagine-- very sturdy and stable. And I have several other pieces in matching laminate that can all be brought together for our next office, if and when we move. The bases are not attached, and move easily.


Even with all the cubbies, and frequent policing, it's still perpetually messy. I can find things, and it's part of the minmalistic organizing plan I've described elsewhere. If any of the paper is worth keeping, it will make it into the year-end file box sent to archives out back.

~Susan