Craftroom Reveal!

I was beginning to think this day would never come.... but here it is!  My craft room makeover is finally finished and ready to share! 

 Of course, before I show you anymore after pictures, I'm going to make you look at the before pictures (again) just so you can fully appreciate how far this room has come.  Brace yourselves, it's pretty bad.....

Don't say I didn't warn you!  These pictures were taken shortly after we moved in, and we had no idea how to go about decorating this space.  We thought it was going to function as both a home office and a craft room, but after trekking up the stairs several times a day for this or that, I decided to create a home office in an unused space downstairs, instead.  I like my exercise, but not that much.  Lucky for me, creating a separate home office downstairs, meant that this quirky loft space could now be used solely as a craft room.  Yay for me!  Of course, the room had quite a few decorating challenges:

Challenge #1 :  Size.  It is a bit on the small side, considering all of the stuff I needed to fit into it.  The room measures 14' x 10' and had to accommodate a seven foot long farm table and three bookshelves that came with us in the move.  Oh yeah, and a large trunk, formerly used as a coffee table. 

Challenge #2 : Shape. Long and narrow, with sloped ceilings.

Challenge #3 : Only three walls and a railing that overlooks the great room and kitchen below. The room and its contents were completely visible from the first floor.

Challenge #4: No closet. That's right, there was no storage of any kind. This was, by far, the biggest challenge in this makeover.

Challenge #5:  This makeover had to be done using mostly items I already had.  My budget was tiny, so I had to stretch my dollars to the max.

Challenge #6 :  As renters, no painting or construction allowed!

I started this makeover with this pretty floral pillow as my inspiration.  I picked up two of these at GW about a year ago, for just a few bucks each.  I love them, but because I have to keep my son and hubby in mind when decorating, they never seemed to find a place in my home.  Since this room is going to be used primarily by me, I decided to design the room around these pillows, using florals and pinks and lots of flowy fabric. 

What do you say I show you the room now?  Yes?  This is the view at the top of the stairs:

Fortunately, we already had all of the furniture that was used in the room.  The challenge was in finding an arrangment that would work for this room.  I hung curtains above the table, along with a sign I made for the room (tutorial coming soon!)  I also made skirts for the table to hide extra storage, as well as one for the smaller bookshelf to conceal items I don't want to look at everyday, but still need easy access to (ahem, paper shredder and waste basket). I sorted, organized and labeled some baskets I already had and placed them on the larger bookshelves.  These hold most of my scrapbooking and sewing supplies. 

 I also made an inspiration board so that I had visual reminders of things I like and am inspired by.  The frame was found at GW, and the mirror was purchased on clearence from Target.

The smaller bookcase was a perfect fit for the shortest wall, under the sloped ceiling. 

Above the bookcase is a favorite metal shelf, repainted and glazed, then decorated with GW finds.

To the right of the small bookcase is the artwork that I made for the room and a pretty silver tray from the GW (you can see the inspiration artwork here).  This project was made using a garage sale picture frame, some curbside drawers, and scrapbook paper.  This project was practically free to make!  I will be posting a tutorial on this project soon too, so stay tuned for that!

I placed the other GW chair in the corner, next to the railing.  I still haven't found the perfect fabric to recover the cushions, but the burlap I put on as a temporary fix is starting to grow on me. 

Next on the tour is the trunk that I needed to fit into this room.  I love that it adds even more storage space, but I didn't love having more dark wood in here.  My solution was to lighten it up using fabric, while creating additional seating for visitors.  Being on a budget, I had to get creative with my "upholsery" fabrics.  The seat cushion is a king size pillow wrapped in a twin comforter, the back pillow is a king pillow sham and the arms are bolster pillows covered in coordinating fabric.  All of these items were castoffs from my daughter's previous room decor. 

The landing at the top of the stairs seemed like the perfect place for the rest of my birdcage collection.  Can you tell I like birdcages?  I almost forgot to mention my solution for the see-thru railing.  As you can see in the pictures, I used fabric.  Yes, more fabric!  If I owned this house I would construct a solid half wall here, but since I am renting, two twin size sheets from W-Mart ($4.00 each) will solve the privacy issue for now. 

And finally, the last stop on the tour is the "closet" I made to hide everything I couldn't fit on the bookshelves, under the table or in the trunk.... yes people, my name is Amy and I'm a hoarder. 

As a renter on a super tight budget, I couldn't construct an actual closet, so I really had to think outside the box on this one.  I got the idea while purusing an old IKEA catalog.  It was advertising hard plastic "curtain" panels that slide on a track attached to the ceiling.  I didn't have any hard plastic panels, but I had lots of fabric and some curtain rods from our former house.  To make the closet, I screwed some simple J-hooks into the sloped ceiling, attached a curtain rod to the hooks, and hung some garage sale curtain panels from it using drapery rings with clips.  Easy peasy!  If I need to access the storage shelves behind the curtains, the panels just slide open, just like a curtain hung the traditional way. 

Lets look at the before and afters one more time: 


                                                                             Before

                                                                                After

Before

After

Before

                                                                               After

And that concludes the tour of the craftroom!  I really couldn't be happier with the way it turned out!  Thank you so much for hanging in there through the whole process, even though it took a bit longer that expected.  Now I'm off to do heaps of laundry and mounds of dishes that piled up while I was busy snapping pictures.....

Thanks for stopping by!






I'm sharing this at:

The Thrifty Home- Penny Pinching Party
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Organize & Decorate Everything We're Organized Wed.
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