craft room makeover

I think this room has been redone more than any other in our house.  It is an area that is open between our kids bedrooms.  It was a playroom for a long time.  But as my kids have gotten older, they have needed less space for toys and more space for craft projects and homework or just hanging out.  And I needed more space for my stuff too.  Over the past couple of years I have been slowly taking it over.  It started with my computer in one corner.  But then I decided that it doesn't have to be all one way or the other.  We can all share it.  So that's where we are now in my new improved office/craft room, that I share with everyone else. :)


   Normally when I start projects, I neglect everything and everyone else, and work my tail off to get things done quickly.  But that's not how I did it this time.  I started thinking about repainting and rearranging a few months ago.  That turned into ripping up the carpet for new flooring- and then my husband got sick, my kids needed me, I got a little cold, we had lots of school and church activities etc etc.  So I took my time to finish it.  I wouldn't even say that I'm DONE yet (I'm never truly done) but it's far enough now to show.  My goal was to lighten it up and add lots of happy color.  


I started by clearing everything out of the room and putting down vinyl wood tiles.  I wish I had done this a long time ago.  It was inexpensive and not difficult.  I'm not going to lie- it was a long day (but it only took a day) and I hurt like crazy afterward from all the lifting, bending and kneeling.  The hardest part was taking up the carpet and fixing the sub-floor to make it smooth enough to lay the tile. But it was soooo worth it.  I seriously come in here all the time and just stare at the floor. I love it so!  There are a lot of tutorials out there on how to lay these tiles.  But if anyone is interested in how I did it, I would be happy to tell you.


The next step was picking a paint color.  Oh my word- I've never had so much trouble picking paint ever.  This room has weird light and casts strange tints to the walls.  I bought 8 different samples of paint to get the right one.  I ended up going with Smooth Stone by Glidden, that I had color matched into Behr paint plus primer. It's the sample on the bottom row, 2nd from the left in the photo (please excuse the poor cell phone pic).  It's a nice beige-grey color.


I painted a lot of the furniture I already had. The big white cabinet (which houses my printer, paper, die cut machines and kids craft supplies) used to be stained wood.  The grey-green cabinet in the back by my desk used to be black.


This is the top of the big white cabinet.  It's not going to stay like this.  I had a bunch of stuff just sitting on the floor so I stuck it up here.  I'm for sure going to do something with the yellow canvas but the inspiration hasn't struck yet for that or anything else up here so it will do for now while I figure it out.


Across the room is this wall- with my new long desk and organizers.  Oh my I love it so much!  I have so much storage room and so much room to spread out doing crafts.  And my kids have a place to do homework or craft projects. 


I bought the organizers from Michaels (at 50% off).  The top is a piece of MDF I had cut from Lowes.


The chairs were already in the room. You'll recognize the chicken wire message board and mom pictures framed of my kids.  I just finished the wooden blue subway art (will post about that soon).  And the chalkboard holder that the scissors are hanging from is from my stash.  The lamps are from Walmart.  The black curtain on the left is my scrapbook/craft storage closet.  I've reorganized that too and will post about that soon as well.


This is the desk area with my recovered office chair.  It's still holding up perfectly.  


This photo display is an old cash register drawer.  


I have two stacked shelves above my desk.  I'm still working on adding more color here instead of just black and red.


Some details:  blue subway art, chevron fabric added to store bought curtains

Some more details:  an old phone from my grandmother (I think my mom and her siblings used to play with it), a chalkboard (might change the color on top from red to something else) and a vintage typewriter


Here is the before of the room - I had already started taking it apart to put in the new floor. But still - whoa!!


And after!  SO much brighter and happy!  And a lot more spacious too! Yay! 

I still would like to get a comfy chair (to put where that red square stool is) for reading or relaxing, a tv/dvd player to watch movies, maybe a new lamp for my desk and some colorful artwork.  

more about the craft closet here
more about the floors here
more about the curtains here