Create.

It has been a little over a month since my last post. I've been in a bit of active limbo in the last month. I had some minor foot surgery in early November. Nothing that kept me completely down, just a bit of a nuisance as a means to a better end than what I've been dealing with lately. Thanksgiving brought a wonderful trip to Carolina Beach for family ThanksMas and bronchitis that still won't quite leave me. 

In the meantime,  I took on the project of a complete craft room overhaul. My craft room is in our 4th bedroom on the second floor with a challenging and limited floor plan due to having our attic access stairs for our 2nd floor HVAC.

For the last 20 years of paper crafting I've had several spaces I've used over the years: Basement with a card table. A windowless den. A spare room that doubled as a guest room and a clearance 8ft table. A 4-season room. Another basement adding some random tables. An office space off our family room. And now a dedicated room. 

In our last house we had a 4 season room with a large wall that the dressers, desks, hutches (pictured) from the hub's childhood bedroom set fit perfectly. I loved loved loved that room. It had 3 walls of windows that overlooked our backyard oasis and full of natural light. 

For a short time that furniture was used in an actual room in the current home until I moved the craft space from first, the basement, second, our den, and third, the 4th bedroom. 

 It worked well and I felt good about kind of up-cycling what we had that would work. Our first dining table from 1996 outlived it's use in the main part of our current house so it got put in the craft room several years back. 

I always longed for a different kind of space...you know, the kind of thing you see on Pinterest. 

Recently getting myself back into doing crafty things after a couple years of just trying to deal with life, I found I needed a few things to be different. I'm not one to just spend money willy-nilly. I kept looking at IKEA, and as much as I love it, I  just couldn't justify the expense for my craft space. I searched for DIY craft room furniture and came across the 9-cube shelf units with some kind of table top over them as a very cost effective way to get a lot of storage space on a limited budget. I set about planning.

I had a few goals. 

1. Counter height workspace. This was absolutely a must as I do a lot of my crafting standing up and my back was killing me working on surfaces that were sitting height. Getting older isn't for the timid.

2. Modular design so when we move again it's more flexible (and a LOT LIGHTER WEIGHT) than the current set up. 

3. Inexpensive

4. Matchy, matchy, with cute bins and other things to keep things tidy

5. My fun stuff visible instead of partially hiding in drawers.

6. A large work surface to facilitate multiple projects and stations for paper cutting, die cutting, working, etc. 

7. Easily organized and switchable to different projects than paper crafting. I also dabble in sewing, quilting, crocheting, and knitting. 

Well, me and my trusty graph paper, measuring tape, Walmart online, and Lowes online went to work. 

The basis of the design revolved around this bookshelf and the decision to get a 4'x8' piece of MDF for the work surface. This size surface was an aggressive goal for a room that measures roughly 11'x11' with an odd layout.

I decided that bookshelf was really functional so my furniture was going to be black instead of the white you see so much in craft spaces. I didn't want to buy another identical shelf just to have white instead of black. 

I acquired from Walmart's Mainstays brand the following: 

3 9-cube shelves, 2 3-shelf standard size bookcases, 1 6-cube shelf

From Lowe's:

4'x8' MDF board, primer, a palm sander, polyurethane, wall paint and appropriate brushes, etc to go with  black paint from the basement. 

I pared down a lot of my supplies, sold some things on eBay, tossed others, donated other things and began moving every thing out of the room. My daughter is away at college and her room was available for all the craft stuff. Our guest room was a holding spot for all the excess furniture.

Did I tell you I was recovering from foot surgery? And coughing up a lung several times a day?

I spent a day building all the Walmart furniture. I spent several days sanding, priming, painting, sealing the MDF table top. I picked a very pale grey-purple paint color called "Origami" and hubs knocked out getting the room painted for me in short order. Everything came together exactly how I'd envisioned it. 

To review what it was in the before:

I had to make a couple quick cards yesterday so it was the first time actually working in the space and WOW...I did good. ;-)

I have a friend making me some vinyl letters for the wall that simply says: CREATE. 

Thanks for coming along on the journey.