Time for a project: office in a closet

As I have mentioned in the past, our house is not huge - its a good size for the two of us (and the pleasantly-plump cat), but being an old house it can be difficult fitting furniture and all of our modern belongings inside! For example, where do we put a computer desk? The master bedroom is tiny, and we can barely fit our dressers inside as it is! The smallest of the bedrooms is my studio space and I didn't leave room for a computer. The third bedroom is the guest room which has been a sort of dumping ground and it has been home to the computer since we moved in (sitting on a tiny kitchen table I had in my first apartment). The problem is we have finally got a bed in the guest room, and although its only a double, it takes up most of the floor space. Where does that leave the computer? Sadly, its jammed in the corner of the room at the end of the bed, which I basically have to climb over to access...not good.

I have measured and re-measured and shuffled furniture around like a crazy person, but there just isn't much space for the computer, so I have been left with only one option: turn the closet in the guest room into office space! Why not? What else is going in the closet (a closet without doors)? So let the transformation begin! I hope this project does not take too long, since I'm getting sick of sitting sideways on an old kitchen chair to use the computer. I will post my progress and the end result as soon as I am done. For now here is the before (sort of...there was a badly put together closet organizer in the closet but I removed that about a week ago and FYI: whoever lived here previously and installed that organizer should be jailed, this had been a child's room and the entire setup was NOT secured to the wall WHATSOEVER!).

What will make this project a bit more challenging is that the closet is a cedar closet, well just a regular closet that someone installed crappy cedar wall planks in. I couldn't be sure what is behind the cedar, so rather than taking it down and risking a whole can-o-worms situation (like no drywall or destroyed drywall or who knows what else - this house is over 100 years old after all) I am going to paint the cedar. I couldn't find much information on painting cedar, but I understand it needs to be primed and primed well due to the tannin that will likely seep from the wood...even then it may backfire. I will keep you posted and if you too are looking to paint a cedar closet, you may pick up some information on what to do (or more likely, what NOT to do!).