With the carpet going into the new office (yes, the forever garage renovation really is nearing completion), Debra and I decided to go looking for furniture.  Currently our office furniture consists of a couple of 6-foot banquet tables and a hodge-podge of file cabinets and book cases that we’ve acquired over the past 8 years.  The new office is approximately 20′ long by 15′ wide.  There’s enough space to put two desks and credenzas, a file cabinet, office supply cabinet, and 8 or 9 book cases.  We’ll even have some space left in the middle where we can put a couple of chairs.  We’re more than doubling our useable space.  We have enough room left over in the renovation budget that we can afford to buy all new furniture.  As long as it’s not too expensive.

And, oh boy can office furniture be expensive!  We’ve looked at some really nice stuff that’d run us $10,000 all told—way more than we want to spend.  There’s some middle-of-the-road stuff that looks really nice but isn’t at all functional (imagine, a computer desk that doesn’t have a cord hole in the top), and some surprisingly inexpensive furniture that looks reasonably nice (especially for a home office) and is well-designed.  If you’re looking for home office furniture, be sure to check Eurway.  We haven’t decided 100% on buying from them, but they’re the leading contender right now, and for a helluva lot less than $10,000.  My only concern is their book cases.  Their 85″ case has only 5 shelves, which doesn’t give me any more useable shelf space than does a cheap 72″ unit from Office Max.  But the shelves on the Eurway unit are fully adjustable in 1″ increments, meaning that if I can buy additional shelves I can turn that 5-shelf book case into a 9-shelf book case—almost doubling the number of books I can place on it.  With 8 of those in the office, we’ll have space for all the books that are currently in the bedroom and the office, and have some shelf space left over.