Just having done that helped out quite a bit, actually, but I had a few more improvements to make. After clearing my desk top of everything that reminded me of work, I replaced my keyboard with a cordless one. This way, I could stow the keyboard behind my desk when I wasn't using it, freeing up the desk top for other uses. Now I could now sit at my desk to read a book or write a letter in peace, without having to wrangle with wires or shove stuff aside.

With shelves installed and deskspace organized, I was ready for the final step: separating the office from the bedroom with that Scandinavian-made, Asian-inspired room divider. By day, I leaned the screen up against the wall, behind my Ivar shelves and out of the way. But at night, ready for bed after hours of getting my ass beat by pre-teens on Battle.net, the divider would come out in its full glory, to cut off my office corner entirely from the rest of the room.

I can’t tell you what a relief that screen turned out to be, more so than the newly organized shelving, even more than the newfound quiet. Until then, I hadn’t been fully aware of what a visual and psychological burden it had been for me to be staring at my office all the time. It was amazing that these small changes could have such a huge impact on how I now felt about the space. And best of all, I realized, the transformation had been an utterly easy project to complete.

Finished at last with my renovations, I removed my bedding from my roommate’s couch, and returned to the bedroom. And there I stood, like Alexander the Great, over my new bedroom conquest. I had finally regained my bedroom as a place of rest, relaxation and sexual rejection.