Debbie Kaufman » Author of historical Christian fiction

   By Debbie Kaufman                                               

Over the last couple of months, I’ve been redecorating.  I hired a young woman whose work I’d seen before and challenged her to help me make a few changes, including finding  a place to call my own for writing.  The caveat was that we had to use as many things I already owned as possible.  Can I get an “Amen” to being budget conscious?                                                                                               

One of my favorite results came when we took the front living room, a room that when originally designed had too many openings to easily accommodate a sofa, and turned it into a writing palace.  We moved bookcases from other rooms, kept the rug, and traded other furniture around so I could use a small dresser to store my mailing supplies.  I highly recommend this type of “repurposing” the things you already own when you are looking to make a change.  The only new things in my office are the paint, the large monitor, the curtains that my friend Gail made for me, and the cubes on the bookshelves for organizing the storage. 

Best of all, we got my favorite desk out of storage and I now had a place to use it.  I originally purchased the William and Mary style desk you see in the picture above when I owned a 100+ year-old Victorian and the huge rooms dwarfed it.  When we moved into this house, I couldn’t hardly get it in through the doors.   BTW, did you notice that the desk style and my characters’ names in The Doctor’s Mission are the same?  Coincidence? 

Disclaimer: The walls look green in this first picture, but they aren’t.  don’t ask.  There is a reason why I normally leave the photography to my daughter and son-in-law!

So, where I used to be a bit of a house gypsy concerning my writing space, I now have a completed office that I love.  Apparently, so do my dogs.  In this rare photo where they are both out from under the desk, I managed to get a shot of the office dogs doing what they do best. 

Sleeping and keeping me company.

I wouldn’t mind having you guys keep me company too.  Just awake and on the blog, not the rug.  Tuesdays are my new Heart and Home posts.   And yes, I know it’s Monday, I’m just putting it out there a day early to give folks time to discover it exists.  On Tuesdays I’ll share remodeling photos, pics from our Sunday suppers, or just anything related to family and the things I love. 

To encourage you to stick around and visit, I’ll have the occasional contest for leaving a comment.  Today’s giveaway is something I feel suited to Monday’s theme of Hearth and Home: Debbie Macomber’s Knit Together: Discover God’s Pattern For Your Life, a set of 3 cd’s read by Sonja Lanzener. 

So tell me, have you redecorated, repurposed, or even rearranged in your home or a particular room?  Is there a particular item that you own that you’ve found a new use for in your life? Or do you just have pets that are underfoot?  Leave me a comment to be entered.  I’ll draw a winner on Wednesday morning.  Entries accepted until Nov. 8th at 11:59 p.m. EST.  No prize subsitutions.  One entry per person, per household.  Void if not permitted in your state.  US entries only.