A Stupidly Easy Office Makeover

There are a lot of reasons I don't really like my home office in its current setup. I share a desk with Matt's desktop computer. There are a lot of plastic tubs in here, so it doesn't look very much like a functional, adult office. And the big one: this room kind of serves as a catch-all for every other thing that doesn't have a place in the house.

My desk hutch is a perfect example of this. The second I got that painting home, it got tossed onto the top of the hutch. The top is covered in tchotchkes and photo boxes and other random stuff that I didn't know what to do with. It's mostly stuff I like to look at or want to keep for sentimental reasons, but I can't really enjoy them because they're all jumbled up. In fact, I regularly consider just throwing the hutch out so I can't do this anymore. (But I can't because we need the bookshelf.)

So I decided to sweep away the inch of dust and arrange the hutch to be more attractive. You know, so I might actually enjoy it in here.

I had to rearrange my stuff several times, because one side kept looking really tall and the other really short, and I wanted to make it look proportional. Some of the stuff got moved to other locations, and a few new items were hauled out of the office closet to make an appearance. I think it looks so much cleaner and nicer! Of course, I can't really see any of the stuff when I'm sitting at the desk, but that's beside the point I guess.

I have a thing for cute boxes, and I put a few new ones up on the hutch for some height. I took down the ugly photo box, and now I have nothing to do with this hideous thing. Can you spray-paint glossy boxes? It may be vinyl or it may be cardboard, but I can't really tell. Maybe I just need to dump it in my Goodwill bag. I don't know what I would do with it even if it were prettier.

Does anyone else have a space they just throw all their random stuff? What do you do to make rooms more enjoyable to be in?