Before & After: Shelf & Printer

Printers are one piece of technology that are hard to live with, and even harder to live without. We have a massive multi-function printer that sits atop an unattractive old shelf in our office. It is entirely coincidental that our printer and the walls are a similar shade of blue, but even that doesn't make it less of an eye sore. Last weekend while blogging away at my desk, I couldn't help but stare at the mess we've created around the shelf. So I got to thinking... why not change things up a bit...
You'd think I snapped this picture in a college dorm room... sadly though, it's our home office:
There must be a better way!!!
Our books need a home, the floor needs a break, and I have got to do something to lessen the impact of our huge printer.

I turned to a can of white paint, and some rearranging:
I removed the backing from the rear of the shelf so that the printer would sit in the middle and still be plugged into the wall. I eliminated a good deal of the clutter and chose only a few books to display on the shelves along with a few Virginia Tech items. Until I can make a trip to Ikea to buy a few wall mount shelves like these, I'll have to keep the rest of our books in temporary storage (aka: under the bed!).
The home office is far from complete, but I think the minor changes I made over the weekend have make a major impact on this small area.