It’s no secret that I’ve been having an issue with my office. When we first moved here, and I was still doing loans, the calming tranquility of walls the color of green tea appealed to me. I had lots of power outlets for my nifty business machines. It was good.

But over the last couple years, really since quitting BigFinancialCompany, I’ve not been able to find the ‘zone’ in my office. It’s not that I dislike the colors, or anything, I’m just not at home there. This is demonstrated that the beautiful calendar my mother gave me at Christmas, from an artist local to La Paz, BCS, Mexico, was still on MARCH as of yesterday.

It was further brought home when my friend Deb walked up there with me for a house tour on Saturday, and said, “Well, no wonder you can’t write here. This doesn’t feel like you.”

We walked down the hall to the room we’d designated the Library, but that we’ve never quite used enough, even though it’s the kind of room that beckons. (Does that make sense?) I don’t know if it’s the geography of the house, the fact that it has huge windows overlooking the side street, or what, but whenever we walk into that room, we tend to find a reason to stay. It helps, I think, that our old denim couch is up there. Further proof of the power of this room: when we moved the denim set upstairs, we had no problem getting the love seat into Fuzzy’s office, but he and his friend D could not manage to wrangle the couch into the library. They measured and found out it was four inches larger than the door, in every angle.

They were, in fact, about to tell me there was no way the couch would fit into that room when suddenly, miraculously, it just did.

I should have seen it as a sign, I guess.

So anyway, Deb and I sat on the couch up there, and she said, “This is where you need to write,” which is true. I love that room. We’d chosen our original offices based on having spaces of roughly equal size, but the reality is, I work from home. I need more space. I need big surfaces spread before me like blank paper. And I need bold colors.

Fuzzy and I talked about it, and he agreed we’d make it happen. Before bed on Friday, he’d made me a diagram with visio even printed cut-outs of all the furniture pieces, so that we could figure out how this could work.

It helps, I think, that I’ve needed to replace my desk for a while. The keyboard tray broke in shipping four years ago, and we’d used spit and twine to make it work, but several months ago it broke completely, crashing down on my foot. (MDF + Bare Feet = OWOWOWOWOWOW!) In retrospect, that was probably a sign as well. The desk is no longer made, the fittings for any tray can only be attached to the struts, and no tray we could find was the right size. The desk is taller than most, and too tall to use a laptop on top of for any length of time.

I was pretty sure we would have to wait to replace my desk til after my conference, but we went looking at desks so I could find some I liked and begin a budget plan, and then we walked into Staples, and they had this corner desk that I liked. I liked it so much that I walked away from the blue glass and steel desk I’d been eyeing, sat down in the pink typing chair near it, and said, “I like this.”

I looked at the price, and it said $99. I thought, “Oh, that’s probably just for this section,” as most such desks are sold in parts – one price for the desk, another for the return or hutch – but no, that was for the whole thing. And it got better – it was on sale for $89, and then there was $10 off on the website, and then I had a coupon for another $10.

We went home to think about it. Because I wanted to make sure. And because it was bigger than we’d planned, but Fuzzy moved the couch into it’s new position, and used empty boxes to show me how the space would work. “You won’t be able to get three people on the sofa,” he said.

When the hell do I NEED three people on the couch in my writing room?

I went online to check the dimensions again, and found out that the desk came in CHERRY as well as the maple we’d seen. Now, while my original desk was beach-glass-green and powder-coated steel, the supports for the desk were warm copper cherry, and my cabinet and rolling file are also copper cherry. This was a lighter cherry, but much closer in tone than maple. I called the store, and Connie said she didn’t have it in cherry, but she’d find out who did, then sent us to Cedar Hill. The Arlington store is about six miles from our house in one direction. Cedar Hill is about eight in another direction – we go there often – not too bad.

I managed to convince the sales person to give me the Internet-only discount, and we got my new desk for $69.

I came home and had to finish a project, and Fuzzy went upstairs and built it for me. (I bribed him with a cheeseburger, but still). He had a work issue come up, and at one point he was under the desk tightening screws and talking to a client, “I’m not the best person to help with this, and I’m sort of under a piece of furniture right now…”

Today, he’ll drop an ethernet port into the room for my desktop machine, though that has a wifi card in it as well, so it’s not urgent or anything. And I’ll start moving stuff over.

After all this, you’re probably wondering why the title of this is “Welcome to the Word Lounge.” It’s because I told Fuzzy he was not allowed to refer to my new space as an office. “I don’t want it tainted by BUSINESS,” I said. “It’s a creative space.”

“Okay,” he said, “It’s your ABODE OF WRITEYNESS.”

“Possibly,” I said, laughing, the way one does at four AM. “Or, I might call it, the Word Lounge.”

Pictures will be taken when everything’s all set up.