Sorry for the delay…I know I promised this last week, but right now my full-time job is taking most of my time and energy, which doesn’t leave a lot of time left for me to create and blog in the evenings.  I should get back to a better balance of work and fun soon!

When we finished the basement, one of the perks for me was that it freed up one of the spare bedrooms upstairs  so that I could create my craft room.   What is now the craft room, has had many different looks since we moved into our house.  Our initial plan for the room was to use it as the guest room.

It was very crowded.  And, we never used it as a guest room.  Then, we swapped the guest room with the office.  It worked better for us, and the guest room was transformed into its current look.  The office was originally a combination of furniture from my house and Bob’s house.  Then, eventually we got the desk that Bob now uses in his Music Room in the basement.  It was in the office upstairs before the basement was finished.  So, when the basement was finished, it left a blank slate for me upstairs to create my craft room.  I had a clear vision for the room – I wanted a large desk that I could have room to spread out when I was working on crafts, and I wanted a comfortable place to relax and maybe read a book.

I have everything I wanted, and was able to furnish the room with all used furniture.  I’ll admit I made a mistake on the desk at first.  I caved and bought a little desk at a used furniture store, but quickly realized that it wouldn’t suit my needs.  At the time, I still had a desktop computer, so I wanted room to hide all the components under the desk.  The little desk didn’t cut it.  I made it work until I found this large desk when I was out for one of my Saturday morning thrift store adventures with my friend.

The desk matched the dimensions of the space almost exactly, and it was only $119 for this large desk.  It was a bit deeper than I originally wanted because of the windows in the front of the room, but I really did want all the space.  I knew I could change the look of the desk with a quick coat of paint.  Next step was the place for relaxing.  I began my search looking for a daybed, but I wasn’t finding anything.  But, then I found a sleigh bed on Craigslist and thought a bunch of pillows could make it function like a daybed.  I think I ended up paying $70 for the daybed.  I did the same thing with it as the desk, just gave it a quick coat of paint.

At this point, the room was very bare.  I did buy new bedding, I believe it was from Kmart.  After I got the desk and tried working at it, I ran into another problem.  Most of the chairs I had or found were too high.  Once I sat on them, I couldn’t fit my legs under the desk.  So, I spent a lot of time going to yard sales and thrift stores with my tape measure trying to find a chair that I could make work.  Finally, I had luck at the Goodwill.  Unfortunately, I must not have taken a before picture, because I can’t find one in my files.  But, it was a plain wooden chair for $5.  I inspected it and knew that I could easily remove the wooden seat, add foam and fabric to make a cushioned seat and give it a coat of white paint like the rest of the furniture in the room.  I did just that and I have a very comfortable desk chair, that I can actually sit in and fit my legs under my desk (its where I’m sitting right now).

The other projects I did on the desk side of the room, include the fabric bulletin board for family photos.  I found a cork board at a yard sale, popped it out of the cheap frame, wrapped it in batting and fabric and then used ribbon and bronze nail heads to make the grid.  I love that I can easily change the photos as time passes.  The floating shelves we originally in our living room, and we weren’t using them anymore, so I moved them to the Craft Room to give me more space to decorate.  I change them seasonally.  I just went back to mainly butterfly décor, because I have tons of it from my previous home.  The lamps are from the same thrift shop that I bought the desk.   The desk decorating is still in flux.  I had a desktop computer until a couple months ago, and I have not finalized how I want everything to look now that I have the laptop.  Its weird, but the desktop monitor provided height in the middle of the desk, and now I feel like everything looks flat.  The wicker chair is the mate to the one in the basement that I got from a friend at work.  I sewed the seat cushion and pillow cover.  Even the trash can and little chest were yardsale/Goodwill items that I picked up.

When I just added the new pillows to the bed, it led to me changing all the décor in the room.  It quickly went from this:

To its current look, which includes the new pillows and a bit more butterfly artwork.

I had bought this book years ago, because it had colorful butterfly book plates in the back.  It cost $1.48 at Ollies.  So, I used two pages in my new wall art.

One is in the small 5×7 frame on the shelves.

And the other page is part of the gallery above the bed, in the center on the bottom.  I kept two of the frames the same – they just each have a piece of scrapbook paper in them.  The larger butterfly print was originally a fabric stretched on canvas that I bought at the monthly church thrift store for 10 cents.  I removed the fabric from the canvas (it looked cheaper that way) and then popped it in  a white spray painted frame.  The individual butterflies were from my grandmother.  They got a coat of spray paint too; they were originally very brassy with a wooden center.

The mirror that was here got relocated to the other wall, which is the small space between the closet and the door to the hallway.   The mirror now reflects the light from outside instead of just the other side of the room.  Framing the mirror are more butterflies with a fresh coat of spray paint.  These were originally dark brown.  They are very sentimental because my Mom has a set at home.  I found these in my thrift shopping travels and knew I needed to have them.  I’m happy to finally have a place to hang them.  The bamboo shelf is from the same thrift shop as the desk.  As I think about all my purchases from that shop, I’m very sad that it is now closed.  This whole wall, as skinny as it is, contains many sentimental items.  The little tin lamp is a tart warmer, that was a housewarming gift from  my Mom when I bought my first house.  The shadowbox is one I made with my wedding bouquet, Bob’s boutonniere and our wedding invitation.  The bottom shelf has all of my scrapbooks that I have filled with pictures of our trips, wedding, and just life in general.  And, they are sharing the shelf with our unity candle from our wedding.

I am thrilled with how this room has evolved.  It functions well for me as a craft room, and is pretty enough that I just enjoy sitting in it to relax.

I’ve seen some beautiful and amazing craft rooms out there.  Do any of you have a designated craft space?  Or, do you just use whatever space suits the project at hand, table, floor, etc.?