About a year ago, I wrote a blog post giving a full tour of Russell and I’s forever home. At the time, we were neck deep in renovations, and I thought it would be really fun to occasionally put out a post updating you on what we were doing. I’m not super handy, but I do love a good before and after.

And then, the world fell apart and so did all of my big plans – it was enough to keep my content and business going without doing extra.

But, now that things feel more “normal”, I’m back to having a bit more mental capacity for some fun, extra blog posts. I won’t promise a frequency on these home posts (because hey, this is a time management for entrepreneurs blog after all), but I will promise this won’t be the last of them!

Other than decorating (which I’m sooooo slow about!), my office is finally complete and is seriously such a dream. I’ve always loved working, but it’s extra special to have this space to work in. However, today I’m sharing about just one small part of my office – my podcast closet.

The Podcast Closet Before

If you remember from my full home tour post, at move in, my closet looked a little something like this:

*Sigh* No matter how many pictures I take, there’s always a picture I wish I’d gotten or done better.

That black hole to the left would be my podcast closet. My office was meant to be a third bedroom, but since we weren’t going to be using it that way, I had my dad and husband take down the doors, as well as the clothes rod, and the bottom shelf.

After getting new carpet put in (go back to that full home tour post to read the entire saga on that), and getting the walls painted, we were here for many, many months:

This was my view every single day when I worked from about May 2020 – December 2020. Not great, but with so many other things happening, in the world and in our house, you can imagine that this project was low on our priority list.

Also, there was definitely more than a little bit of imposter syndrome popping up — 2020 was the year my business became profitable for the first time, and I finally let go of my backup plan of going back to teaching “if I needed to”.

Then, after a great year in business, I decided it was time to create the CEO office of my dreams – no more back up plans, and no more “maybe this won’t work” thoughts.

So, I finished unpacking, and finally bought furniture for my office, which left us here:

Better, but still not where I wanted it to be. See, my dream for this closet was always to create a space for podcasting so that I could get great sound.

Back when we had no carpet for 5 or 6 months, my office floor was literally just subflooring. And the sound quality was TERRIBLE. Every time I recorded a podcast episode, I had to lay blankets down everywhere. Which was crazy annoying, and thus, batch week became even more important.

So, even once we got carpet put back in, I knew that I wanted to utilize my closet for podcasting in order to get a great sound for all of my listeners.

I also really wanted a standing desk. At first, I wanted to put one in that little space beside the closet, but I thought having two desks and a recording desk in the closet was probably a bit much. So, I decided that the recording space should just be a standing desk and I enlisted Russell’s help to create it.

Building the Desk

The video gives a quick time lapse of the work, but he cut, sanded, stained, and installed the standing desk for me and I just can’t get over how much I love it. I know one concern may be whether the space feels cramped or claustrophobic talking to the wall like I do, but the depth of the desk has me standing outside of the closet, so I don’t have any issues with that at all. (I also once literally recorded an interview inside a much smaller closet that was filled with clothes and shoes, so this is nothing compared to that!)

I’ve recorded two months worth of podcast episodes in there now, and the sound is just better. Plus, it’s been incredibly helpful for when I want to stand to teach inside of the Simplified & Balanced Sisterhood, or when I’m giving guest trainings inside other people’s memberships.

And that’s it! One day, I’d love to get an outlet put into the closet itself (currently, my computer cord runs across the door when I’m recording and I’m clumsy. I’m just waiting for disaster to strike.) Luckily, I’m fairly low tech when I record. Just my computer, my Yeti mic, and Audacity. Once I’ve recorded, I ship my episodes off to my amazing editor, Alana!

One last look at the final product:

What are your thoughts on the podcast closet? Would you use one? Think it’s a waste of space? I’d love to know! Be sure to give me a follow over on Instagram to see more BTS of my life and business!