In some ways this is a bit of ancient history, in others a work in progress. It all started when my next door neighbor, Stephanie, was moving her office from building A to building B a couple of weeks before Christmas. Her desk didn’t fit in the new office, so she asked Dave to pick it up in his truck, so that the desk could be given to charity. He did. When he saw the desk he knew that the “charity” was going to be me. He drew out the basic shape, took a bunch of measurements, got help loading the desk—it’s a large, multi-part thing made mostly of particle board with a decent laminate that’s quite heavy—into his truck, and brought it home, knowing that if I didn’t like it, didn’t want it, or it wouldn’t fit in my home office, that it would be a simple matter to then take it down to Stephanie’s favorite local charity, and give it to them.

He gets home with this thing, and shows it to me while it’s out in the truck—bad blogger: no pictures of it in the truck! Drat. Anyway, we plotted, we planned, we figured that it would fit in here. We got it out of the truck and into the house, and plotted and planned some more. The next day was moving day.

We started by removing almost everything from my office.

Then we somehow got the main desk piece down the stairs, around the corner, down the hall, and into my office. Egads. The thing weighs a ton—even on a dolly it’s hard to move around.

After getting that piece down here, the rest were relatively easy—emphasis on “relatively.” Each piece weighs a lot.

The desk has a return. And a large conference/work area. That’s the thing that Dave’s standing on here. He’s attaching the foot to the conference portion, turning it upright. It passed Ricki’s inspection. That’s a critical step in any furniture acquisition—feline approval.

The return was the last piece to be fit in. There’s still room in my office for the oak printer table my friend John made for me back in the mid 1980s. That’s the dark thing with the shelf over on the far right. Look at the color difference. I do like the color of the oak better, but how can I turn down perfectly wonderful office furniture simply because it’s not the color of aged oak? Well, I can’t. Obviously.

The main parts are now all assembled, and in place. After doing all that, we slipped the oak floor under the conference table—easier said than done—up to the spot where the computer will be, so that I can easily roll from one part of the desk to the other.

My worktable is still where it was, but instead of having the “shipping center” under it, it’s the new home to my lateral file cabinet. I thought at first that it would be nice to keep the top of the cabinet cleaned off, so I could see the pretty wood, but it turned out to be a bad idea. Ricki got herself caught back there. The cabinet isn’t all the way against the wall, and there’s a spot back in there that is apparently irresistible if you happen to be a cat. Naturally, when she got herself stuck back there Dave was in bed asleep. I had to clear everything off the top, move the counter aside, and pull the cat out. Gads. There’s a blanket on top of the file cabinet now. It’s inelegant, but effective in keeping Ricki on this side of the cabinet.

So here it is. My office is still a disaster, but the new desk is awesome. There’s actually a part of the new desk that’s still next to the front door; I guess you’d call it a hutch. It’s huge, bigger than any other single piece, and we’ll need assistance (male) to bring it down here. No way I can help without hurting myself big time. When it comes down here it will stand against the wall on the edge of the return. It has a couple of cupboards in it, where I’ll store knitting books and other stuff so that they’re handy. In the meantime, I’m waiting to bring all the rest of my regular office stuff back in here. It’s a little frustrating sometimes. I have to go into the next room for just about everything, but eventually Dave will finish building the support needed for the hutch, so we can finish the installation, and move all my stuff back into this room.

I’ve already made good use of all that extra space behind me. It’s an awesome thing to have a sweater, scarf, blanket, laid out on the table, and to be able to roll back and forth between it and the computer to write down measurements, stitch counts, all that stuff. Pure heaven.

Thank you, Stephanie. You’re awesome.

P.S. Ricki loves the new arrangement. Not only does the new desk provide an awesome horizontal playground for her, but having a bookcase next to the desk provides its own source of feline entertainment. You can see her sitting on the shelf behind and between the telephone and the stereo. I’ve threatened to leave that shelf permanently empty, dub it Ricki’s Shelf. For some reason Dave doesn’t like that idea. Silly man.