The craft Room

Our craft room has been the black hole of our apartment since before we moved in. As in “where are we going to put X?”  “I’m not sure, let’s just put it in the craft room and we will deal with it after the apocalypse.”  Well the ‘apocalypse’ came and went and it was time to seize that room!

Here is the original, empty room. Clean, clear, spacious…. Well it could only last so long

We decided to inject some life in to the room while maintaining enough calmness that we could still be creative. We decided on Mango Madness paint from Lowes and began the transformation!

This is an armoire I picked up at a garage sale for $10 a few years back. Lots of storage, but it was very scratched and worn. It was very heavy looking in the room so this also got the white primer and paint treatment.

We picked up these cupboards at the ReStore because we clearly needed more space. There is just something about the musty, stale, spiders-that-packed-up-and-left-because-of-the-smell smell that we must really like.

So we primed and painted the insides and outside just to seal everything in and then hung them above or steal of a desk from Ikea. In this picture you can see a small amount of why we need so much storage!

Ta da! The semi-finished result, where the doors are back on the cupboards and the table and floor is cleared off.  Having both the armoire and cupboards white help immensely lighten up the room and tie all elements together.

This is the inside of one of the cupboards. Everything needs a beautiful label of course, but for now I can find all my card making and sewing supplies in under a minute.

Here is a recap, before and after!  

Line em up

A few years ago I aquired 2 nightstands from a dorm that was being remodeled. Each had 4 drawers and have held many things in my various small apartments

moving 9 times in 8 years?! pull yourself together woman! find a man, settle down.... I digress

I painted the outsides a rich chocolate brown, added legs and called it a day. Now that I repurposed my dresser somewhere else due to the size of my bedroom, those drawers suddenly became much more full than the average where-did-this-random-balloon-and-mini-saw-horse-come-from? collection I had been stashing for years. The drawers had been lined with a b-e-a-utiful blue mottled contact paper from the 90s (and smelled like the 90s) so I knew something needed to be done so my sweaters didn't come out smelling like 1998.

what did 1998 smell like? sharpies, magazine pages of Leonardo DiCaprio, and the most obnoxious I-am-13-of-course-I-know-everything-in-the-entire-world mindset. That my friends is a stink no one wants to smell. And a musty, these-drawers-have-been-used-in-a-dorm-for-20-years smell. Both equally unpleasant

I ripped out the contact paper and was left with bare wood. Unfortunately the smell did not go out with the paper. I wiped them down with a vinegar and water solution and cleared that right up.  It was nice, but in my true jazz-it-up style, I wanted to line the drawers with fabric. I happen to have a giant stash of eco-friendly, indoor/outdoor fabric that would hold up nicely (thank you Ambiante!) I selected 8 fabrics and went to town with my spray adhessive.

The following pics are the results!

I love the way they all coordinate together, and they are definitely more exciting to open than the hideous blue contact paper. My sweaters and jeans are happy!
~A