So my New Year's goal was to finish up the craft room. I've been working on it sporadically for the past couple of years and now it's all done! Of course I have a ton of pics!
I painted the door ala
Sticks, to set the mood. It makes the end of the hallway look very cool! This side of the door has some crows and starlings on it, which I love, and then the four seasons are represented going around the edges.
The craft room side of the door, you won't really ever see unless you are in the craft room with the door closed. So I just put crafty things and some fun things on that side. The quote at the top says, "Some pursue happiness, others CREATE it."
Okay, so here's the working part of the craft room. It has to accommodate a whole family of creative people, so it has workstations for my sewing machine, Chad's miniature painting, and the kids. (And my future parrot!) First thing we did was put in some flourescent can lighting, put in the crown molding, paint and put in a floating Pergo floor. I made certain to use a floating floor so that if it gets trashed then it will be easy to remove and replace.
Here is where Chad paints his little warhammer guys and then the kids get the remaining corner, though I usually find them crafting on the floor instead. The upper cabinets are from IKEA.
Notice the handy paper towel holder and old-school pencil sharpener. I specifically made the counter a floating counter (more on that in a bit) and we all have rolling drawer cabinets, so the floor is very easy to clean - yay! It also makes it easy to adjust the size of the workspaces in case you need to spread out.
The floating countertop. This was my first time using my router! It is made of two layers of particle board, with laminate on top. It is almost 2' deep. The entire countertop is in two pieces for maneuverability. First I screwed a wall cleat along the entire length at the height I wanted (it is painted blue to blend in). Then I got these Speedbraces off Amazon and put them on each wall stud. (They are about 20 bucks each, so that was the most expensive part of the countertop). Then I cut the first layer of particle board, using a template I made to router the curves perfectly. Then I attached a second layer and routered the edges of that flush with the first, and cut grommet holes for electrical cords. Then put on the laminate. It is pretty solid! The only problem that I ran into is that there was an electrical run in the wall exactly where I wanted to screw the braces into the studs. I had to open up the wall in those spots to make sure I wouldn't electrocute myself while screwing them in.
The curtains I made to match the door. I just sewed white curtains and then used wonder under to fuse some checkered fabric strips and ribbon onto them.
Closet doors. We replaced the old bypass doors with bifold doors. I prefer bifold doors because you can have both sides open at the same time. To make them cute, I painted two sections with chalkboard paint (one for each child), and then had an old mirror cut to fit another door, and had a piece of sheet metal cut to fit the last one for magnets.
Inside of the closet! It's a big mess already! We placed the shelves once we knew how big the storage drawers and cubes were, so they fit perfectly.
This is my favorite part! I lurked on craigslist for forever waiting for a built-in ironing board and I finally found one for 35 bucks! New ones are over 400 dollars! Woo hoo! It was almond colored and I took it apart and painted it.
Here's the inside! It even swivels out! I made a new ironing board cover for it too.
That's about it! I'm so pleased about how it came out and It's gotten a ton of use already!
Thanks for looking!
