Under the Stairs

It has become crucial for me to carve out a private space for myself in this house. You'd think that this would not be terribly difficult given that we have approximately a gazillion square feet to work with. However, each and every room is occupied and can not possibly be overrun by my frivolous desire to luxuriate in solitude.  Upon hearing my wish for an office, every single person in this house has asked me what is wrong with my bedroom. What, indeed? 

In looking about at what options might be available to me, I finally hit upon the perfect idea.

In frantic desperation it occurred to me at last that Harry Potter may have been on to something extraordinary. Have you seen Harry Potter? His abusive caretakers (which seems a cruel oxymoron) gave him the tiny room under the stairway as his bedroom. This small room allowed the young wizard to suffer in obscurity until he was called to his destiny. 

Perhaps this is the ideal use for such a room. A place for latent talent to ferment until thrust into greatness upon an unsuspecting world! 

Or maybe just a suitable little room for a mom to hide and do the odd bit of blogging.

This morning the diminutive space beneath our stairs was filled with boxes of books and doilies and other ridiculous items typical of such storage spaces. I worked all day at reclaiming it. Have you ever tackled a project like that? Cleaning it out was the easy part. The hard part was finding places to redistribute all the things I moved out of there. This meant that I went through other storage places in the house weeding out, condensing, and loading up my car's trunk for a big donation to the Goodwill. It took hours.

Now I have a very peaceful office space.

A very tiny office space. 

It measures 90 inches by 40 inches. 

My daughter and I are the only two people in the house capable of standing upright in my office, and that is only possible on the desk side. The ceiling then takes a dive down to very near the floor at the far end. "Far end" is something of an exaggeration, given the diminutive reach of  these four walls. 

I am delighted.

I have a candle burning, Pandora is streaming my favorite Norah Jones station, and I'm curled up on the floor typing merrily away.

Heaven, I tell you. Almost 25 square feet of Heaven.