Desk organization

My desk was a disaster. I didn't take a before picture of the whole thing because it had lots of stuff I would have to "fuzz" out, but trust me when I say there were just piles of papers - some that needed permanent filing, some that needed addressing (i.e. bills, summer kindergarten assignments), some that needed surreptitious trashing (children's art). I have still been using the mesh wall hanger that you can see in this picture from during our remodel. Except that because we now have a backsplash, I have been keeping it propped up against the wall, precariously balanced. All the papers theoretically go in there, but without a way to organize them and because the whole thing keeps falling, I also end up just stacking things in piles. I almost lost a gift card in the stack. I was constantly worried I would miss one of our few paper bills. It was getting bad.

I have shelves built in above the desk area, but the size of all the cubbies makes it hard to do anything practical with them. So filling the space I have, I stockpile folded up receipts, expired meds for the next give-back day, $1 bills for my daughter's allowance, old greeting cards, etc. But no full sized papers - which is the one thing that I seem to accumulate. It was time to make this a more usable space.

It was clear that these were assembled as two "H"-shaped units, so we thought (hoped!) that removing one of them would leave everything else unharmed. We used a keyhole saw and started sawing into one side of the structure.

 A little more, and then a little more than that, working in slow chunks:

When we got enough of the vertical pieces out, the rest came out pretty easily. Still the whole thing was slow going, since we didn't want to ruin any of the finish.

Then we were left with the nails sticking out from below. We managed to hammer a couple of them out from the top. D leveled the others with a dremel.

The shelf looks smooth and evenly stained without the inner structure, fortunately, as expected. You would never know the letter-holder-sized organizer was ever there.

Here it is now, with two document trays stacked inside, purchased after careful measuring. The shelf is about 11'' deep - an annoyingly precise depth that meant that while a paper could fit in there long-wise (so that the 8.5'' side faced out), an organizer slightly LARGER than a paper would stick out (most of the document trays were 12-14'' long). So I opted to buy trays that are open on the long side, though that meant less real estate inside the shelf. I was able to squeeze two in there, because while the clearance was only 4.5'' to the top lip, beyond that first half inch, inside was almost 6'' high.

It's not perfect of course - I'm still a victim of my own flawed organizational skills. But I have two distinct full-sized shelves, plus a couple of folders, to sort papers. It definitely makes the space more helpful for the types of things I actually need to store there.

Meanwhile (as you can see from the bottom right corner of the photo above), I'm still using the once-upon-a-time-wall-mounted organizer. I had purchased a version matching the document trays that would actually stand up on a flat base, but it turned out to be envelope-sized, rather than full-sized. And that was exactly the size that I *don't* actually need to help me organize. So I need a similar item that would hold normal 8.5x11'' paper. I haven't been able to find one - so please let me know if you come across something.

As usual, we've been so busy around the house that I've had trouble finding time to post. But I have a few projects lined up to talk about. AND we are filing our shed permit paperwork TODAY. So more on that soon as well.