Ballad Of The Blue Room

Finished! Well, more or less, anyway. I now have my office/den/workspace/whatever. At first we were calling it my "office", then my "man-den", then simply "my room", then the weird "man-cave". The current label is "The Blue Room" (to match the guest bedroom we call "The Red Room).

Here's what it looked like when I first moved in; my three small bookshelves simply shoved up against the wall:

While functional, it never looked very nice. After much hemming and hawing and dithering (mostly on my part), we decided to paint one wall (an accent wall) and put up new shelves (that all matched). First step: move the old shelves:

Next, pick a paint color! After many days (Steef says weeks) agonizing over Home Depot paint chips, I settled on Running Water. Up went the first coat and back we went to Home Depot for another quart for the second (oops). Wall, painted:

I picked this particular blue because I wanted the room's theme to subtly remind me of Monterey and the Central Coast. Blue for the sky and ocean and the brown of the wood of the floor and rugs for the rolling cliffs and beaches. Blue also to go along with the blue themes of the Costa Rican paintings.

Next step, get the standards up:

Now the first three shelves are up:

All six shelves up (I'm going to need a step-stool for that top shelf):

And after: Books and tchotckes all shelved and ready for study (and the occasional rearranging):