2.22.2021

The Plans for My Needlepoint Office

The Plans for My Needlepoint Office

Not me trying to find a clean picture of this room and coming up with this... Which helps explain why we are where we are. My office for Penny Linn Designs is in need of some major organizational plans, which I finally have in place. It's my first real outline for a room so I thought it would be fun to share the process and drawings/concepts for the space.

The Plans for My Needlepoint Office

The biggest thing about the room is that it needs to be really functional in a variety of ways. I need to be able to hold inventory, pack up orders, create kits, paint, film tutorials, and more! So I didn't want to just jump into making this a true office. I wanted to set it up in this space and figure out what I really needed out of it. 

With any room, I first plan out what I want it to look like in my mind. I invasion myself in the room doing a variety of things like painting, for example, and then try and imagine what I need around me to do that. For painting, I want a really well-lit space, room to have a computer, my paint supplies, canvas... I want to be sitting in a comfortable chair -- one that rolls would be nice -- and have my supplies nearby but not on the table so I can have space. And so on.

Once I've spent time daydreaming about it, I usually just go shopping but this time I wanted to draw it out. I took to Procreate (on my iPad) and did a rough sketch of my space and I really loved the process of it. I like that I could bring what I had in my mind to life and show others so they can help me achieve it. I'm actually off to The Container Store today to buy some Elfa during their sale. I have an appointment for three different spaces, which I will show you below.

The Plans for My Needlepoint Office

This is how the office looks from the door. The current state of affairs as of yesterday morning. The remodel/demo/design phase started with clearing everything out of this room (RIP my blog office) except for the white Ikea console and the chest of drawers. Those are covered in cloth in the middle of the room while we paint.

Andrew helped in taking apart the closet (more on that below) and I started taking things off the walls, filling in holes, and then painted. 


Packing Station


The Plans for My Needlepoint Office
packing station drawing plan

The wall right off the door will be the packing station for the office. It will have a long white desk (not as close to the door as the drawing -- I don't draw to scale lol) with an Elfa wall unit above and below. The Elfa above will hold inventory like canvases, kits, bags and accessories -- all within arms reach. Near and on the top of the desk will be the tissue paper for wrapping, cards for the orders, printers, stickers, and an open space to physically pack the orders. Below the desk will hold packing supplies like bags and tape.


Painting/Work Space


Painting/Work Space
Work Space section

On the wall next to the packing station will be a connecting set of desks than span the space under the windows. I wanted to put my desk here because of the natural light it gets and the view of our backyard. It's really calm and nice to look out of so I think this will be a great dedicated space to do some work. I will also have an area for extra help with a second desk, as needed.

Above the second desk and sandwiched between the window and packing station will be connecting Elfa shelves to hold pant supplies and extra items that are often used but not needed on a daily basis. Things like needle cards, kits for threads, scissors and refils for the printers below. 

Thread Wall


Thread Wall
Thread Wall design concept

If we do a 180 in the room, we find ourselves on the thread wall. I'm not really sure what to call this space but that seems to work for me. This will be a backdrop for our videos while also being a visually appealing little corner of the office that really is more for show than anything.

The wall itself will (eventually) have a Penny Linn Designs branded wallpaper behind it (logo is TBD) and color cordinated threads hanging on either side. This will make for a pretty area while also having a great space to organize my threads and will make picking colors for my canvases a breeze. 

Below we'll keep the Ikea console we had as our TV stand in the apartment. It works well here and I will keep it until I find the need for something different. I like that it has enclosed space but is also able to feature and show off more design like items with it's open top and middle shelves. 

The Closet


closet plans

I weirdly don't have a good picture of it on my phone but you can see it in the first photos in this post. It's a horribly designed yellow closet that will need the most help in the room. First thing's first is we're taking the "closet" function out and tearing out the hanging rod and all the shelves. Instead we're going to make it an open storage space with another Elfa wall component. 

This will be open storage space that will hold overflow inventory in bigger product bins (that will help restock and supply the packing station). We're also taking off the doors here because they just take up too much of the space in the room and won't be used (nor missed).

Next to the closet in the little window nook is this georgous chest of drawers that I bought on FBMP that will hold all of my personal needlepoint projects, threads and accessories (which is what it's doing now). It's one of my favorite things about the whole room!


In terms of progress, we started on it yesterday and will finish painting I assume later today. Once that is done I'll set up the desks I bought which arrived yesterday. They came within two days which was amazing. I'm not sure I'll be as lucky with my desk chair lol. And like I mentioned, I'll pick up all the shelving units from The Container Store today as well but those wont be built until next week when my parents get here.

My mom said if I bought everything by the time she arrived, she'll set it all up for me (which I will fully take her up on). So hopefully by the first week in March we'll have 90% of the room ready to go which is so exciting for me. It'll be the first time PLD has an official space and I think it will help me get a lot more organized with the store going forward. And I assume It will stay at that stage for a while until I can figure out a light fixture I want and until I can finalize my PLD print with Riley (!!) which will come in late April. 

I'm really excited about the space and I can't wait to take you along on the journey!


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