Crafty Crafty: Craft Room Makeover

I did a little makeover of the ol’ craft room/office. You’ll notice the before. It looks excellent, no? The ladder is the kitty condo my mom and I made for the cat. she has since relocated into the laundry room, giving us more space, and she’s happy to have more privacy. The desks are mine (left) and hubby’s (right)—he doesn’t do any crafting, but has his computer and office stuff.

Here’s the after:

My friend and I painted the walls green. (I’m usually a blue girl, but green felt like it would inspire creativity. We’ll see.) I moved the cat out and rearranged the furniture (besides the desks). I hung some matted and framed photography on the walls. Surprisingly, for as much as I’m really interested in photography at the moment, I’m actually the less trained photographer in our house—hubby took photo classes in high school and college and had a dark room in his basement when growing up. These are some of his pictures I dug out of binders in our closet.

Table in the corner, which is great for having extra space when I have friends over to craft. Amazingly, I’ve actually had friends over to craft—a couple of friends and I made aprons for their children, and another friend and her mom came over for some hairbow making.

But the thing I am most proud of are the cornices!

I ordered the fabric from fabric.com and it’s just what I wanted. I made the cornices a bit wide, as we plan to put trim around the windows shortly. I used these basic directions, and made a couple of slight changes. I didn’t put tops on them so it was easier to wrap. I’m actually pretty surprised at how good they ended up looking—hubby was worried about not making them out of wood. The foam was so easy to work with, and they’re so light I don’t worry about them falling off of the wall and/or landing on my head. I had my dear hubby rip the pieces apart on his table saw, then I did the other cutting with a utility knife. I glued ‘em together with hot glue and had a great time with the staple gun attaching the fabric. I hung them by attaching an eyelet screw inside each side and putting a nail in the wall. So, yeah, I’ve got window treatments now.

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My parents were purging three great, tall bookcases, so I claimed them. One holds books in the closet; one holds toys in the playroom, and the third holds my fabric stash and my kid’s board games. It is organized but appears cluttered, so I made a curtain. One of my friends had the brilliant idea to use a tension rod to hold it at the top, and it works amazingly!