I got a table!

So remember how my kids are awesome?  Yeah well they really are.  I was so excited to go to school today and when I got there I couldn't wait for my kids to arrive because I was pretty excited about things that were happening.  How often does that happen on a Monday morning??

Until Monday, my corner of the room looked like this:

And here's a closeup of my desk area.

It worked alright.  I even think now that it looks pretty in the pictures.  It was a little cramped back there though.  If someone was sitting in the chair at the desk there wasn't enough room to fit behind them.  Because of the cabinet and big TV overhead I also felt kinda like I was sitting in the dark.  If no one had said anything though, I would have been perfectly fine with the setup for the year.  My kids, however, offered to make it better.

So here's the back story...  In August, when setting up my room, I knew that I wanted an L-shaped desk area because it's what I'm used to and I like the space.  The room, however, didn't have the makings for an L-shaped desk.  So I decided to get creative and resourceful and build myself a table out of random pieces of wood that I found in my garage. That's the back part of my desk in the table above.  That tall cabinet didn't move (so I thought) so I built the table to fit in the space.  My table was not fantastic, but it worked just fine.

I had to build it in two pieces so it would fit in my car and also I was worried that if I built it all in one piece it wouldn't be that sturdy.  The top was also just pieces of wood sitting on top, not connected in any way.  Here's what it looked like underneath:

Fast forward to about a month ago.  I let slip to my carpentry kids that I built it and once they had a look at it they nearly doubled over laughing (which is totally ok with me- I can laugh at myself).  So for about a month they keep saying that they want to take it and fix it.  This is why I love them.  They weren't just laughing at me, they wanted to help me make it better.  This week it was more of, "Ok Miss...this is happening.  I'm taking your table tomorrow so you need to clean your stuff off of it."  Not the exact words, but that was the gist of it.  So Thursday was the day.

Table gone.  Desk a mess.

Three periods later the boy that was working on it came to show me pictures of how it was going so far and that it was almost done.  It was cool that he was excited and I think proud of it.

Later on we're talking about where it'll go and I mentioned that the tall cabinet won't move because it's stuck to the wall or something.  Again, I find out that I'm wrong.   So with some help, I moved that giant tall cabinet to the back of the room and it made such a HUGE difference.  It made the room feel so much bigger.

Second period today, this arrived:

I love it. Love love love.  It's a million times better than my table was.  The kid sat on it to demonstrate this fact.  The picture also can't express how awesomely it's sanded down on the top.  It's so so smooth. And it was handmade for me which makes it special.

Here's the before and after.

Before

After

With the tall cabinet moved I was able to move up my desk a little bit and the extra space is just so lovely.  Also today the TV in top corner was taken out.  With that and the cabinet gone I no longer feel like I'm hiding in a dark corner.  I actually feel like I'm in the same room as everyone else.  I know it might sound like I'm crazy, but even a little bit of extra space makes the room feel like an entirely different place.  This stuff excites me way more than I can explain..I blame HGTV.

The rug is also on the other side of the room for the time being.  I'm not sure where it's going to end up.  For now though, the kids are all coming up with things to hang on this new empty wall that we have.  I think I should let them decide so it's more of "our room" than "my room."  They really like to be a part of the decision making process.

Here's another picture just because I want to.

I think that my other project should be arriving tomorrow and the kids that are making holiday decorations said they're going to be doing them tomorrow.  Yet again, I can't wait for tomorrow.  :)