I Have A Craft Room!

After months of admiring all my fellow Nestie's fantastic craft rooms, I decided that it was time for me to join the ranks as an aspiring crafter. Until now, any time I had a project to work on, I either took over the dining room table, praying that I didn't get too much hot glue or paint on it to do any permanent damage, or else I would set up shop on the living room floor, in front of the t.v. Not the best work area in the world when you've got a six year old and two dogs to contend with! So on Friday afternoon, after I promised away our rainy weekend to hours on the XBox and several football games in exchange for building me a craft desk, I convinced Tony that I needed my own space to be creative and artistic and all things "June Cleaver". So let's start from the beginning-

This is what the area looked like when we bought the house:

Yikes!!! Not really sure why the floor had been (partially) ripped up, but needless to say, this room needed some TLC. Our original plan was to turn it into a laundry room, but the time frame on that was leaving me less than excited and I was sick of looking at the last "ugly duckling" room in our house. So last weekend we replaced the floor. We finished ripping out what was there and put down some vinyl that we had been carting around since two houses ago. Not exactly what I would have put down, but the price was right. Here's the new (dirty!) floor:

I should also add that until now, this has been the dog's "bedroom", being that there's really no other logical place in the house to hold Patsy's giant crate and the pup's dishes, food, etc. So Friday evening when I got home from work, I began explaining my "vision" to Tony. I don't think he really "got it" at first, but I knew that once I started putting it together, he'd come around. After a considerable about of measuring, cutting, measuring again, screwing back together, cutting some more, and finally screwing into place, my darling husband had built me a desk. God love him. It was pretty late at that point, so there wasn't much else I could do until the next morning. Off to bed we went.

Saturday morning rolled around (WAY too soon!), and I started on my mission of rounding up any and all craft paraphernalia residing in my house, garage, car (you think I'm joking!), etc. I needed to take stock of what I had in order to come up with a plan to organize it all. This prompted a very wet, soggy and cold trip (#1) to both the hardware store and Dollar General. I returned home with my vast assortment of baskets, hooks, shelving equipment, and paint swatches...completely clueless as to what I was going to do with it all. After bribing Tony to charge the drill once more and help me hang a few things, it was starting to take shape. I spend the rest of the day organizing (and later reorganizing) and decorating. My folks stopped over to drop a few things off and couldn't believe the transformation. I liked it, but something was still missing. I finally decided to call it quits for the day, put Abbey to bed and watched a couple of cheesy movies with Tony.

Sunday morning I woke up to, you guessed it, MORE RAIN!!! ::sigh:: I puttered around the house, trying to pull things from other rooms to complete my little project, and then decided I needed to brave the weather and head out to look for just a few more things. After another trip to the hardware store, an hour wandering aimlessly around my mother's antique store, and the rest of the afternoon spent moving everything but the desk around, I decided I had successfully completed my mission of creating the ultimate craft room. Well, at least as "ultimate" as space and money will allow at the moment. So here it is folks:

So what do we think girls? I was pretty proud of myself for using what I had to work with. All in all, I think I spent MAYBE $25. Most of that was just hooks and hangers and stuff from the hardware store. Everything else in the room was just re-purposed from somewhere else in the house. At some point I would love to get rid of the dog crate so that I can add some drawers or something under the desk, but until Patsy grows out of her "terrible twos", it's staying. It least in the meantime I can use it for more "counter space"! There are still things I would like to do, like add more shelves to the back wall, find some type of window treatment, figure out a better alternative to the chair, stuff like that. But for the most part I'm very happy with the way it turned out. Leave me a comment and let me know what you think! Also, any thoughts and suggestions are always welcome. I just can't wait to get home tonight so that I can get CRAFTY!!! (And then thank my oh-so-patient husband!)