The Craft Room Metamorphosis

For three years now, ever since we moved into this house, I have been longing for a craft/sewing room.  First of all, I have a LOT of craft stuff around, and it’s an accumulation of about 15 years.  Secondly, I think everybody needs their very own creative little space.  While I did have a corner of our dining area, there was no way it was large enough to house my smorgasbord of crafterie (my own just-now-made-up word).  Mostly, it’s sewing stuff/fabric, but I also have a lot of scrapbooking bits, painting stuff, and kid’s crafts.  So, for three years, I’ve had my eye on a small 10×12 room which is located inside of our workshop.  Originally, it was built to incubate emu eggs.  Yep, you read that correctly.  Back in the hey-day of emu oil, the former owners and my neighbors had a small emu co-op, where they raised and sold emu.  So, this little room was well insulated, and as an added bonus, it was fitted with about 12 plugs at 3′ off of the ground for the incubators/brooders.  No more reaching down to fumble with plugs!  Yay for my aging back.  So let’s go allllll the way back to last winter when we started with this project.

In the beginning, there was a window.  It was, well, a fairly (cough) crappy little window with the bottom glass pane that somehow mysteriously hung on despite only being attached to the frame at the bottom of the sill.

Notice the lovely coordinating black plug/outlet which was also slathered with glow in the dark paint.  If you will look at the floor, you will now see the oh-so-lovely plastic trim baseboard. The door opens out to my husband’s Man Cave.

Now, here comes my wonderful husband to start this project right:

And then:

Shhhhh, you have to promise to not tell Jason I have a picture of him on here in his slippers!  So as you can see, he is measuring now to put in my very own door, which I scored for free off of Craigslist.  And here is the door:

And there she is!  Whew, aren’t you tired?  I know I am!  (I broke a sweat watching him install the door while I sat around taking pictures.  I’m a really great help.)

Now moving right along, let’s fast forward through this hideous, sweltering summer and get to some nice fall temps so that we can begin on our little project again.  Picking up on September 25, 2011:  Looking into the room:

Note the Beee-youuuu-ti-ful sponged walls (which we had dubbed Diarrhea Green and SoulSucking Blue), the missing fan, and the holes in the sheetrock, thanks to my parrot.  Here is the A/C window unit that Jason mounted into the wall, and my metal storage rack, chock full of junk:

Nice, huh?  So first we ripped out the plastic molding by the floor.  Then filled the holes in the walls with spackle.  Jason mounted a 4’x8′ piece of pegboard and a shelf for my 19 zillion antique/vintage sewing machines.  After that, we spray painted that pegboard Dover White.  (Note to self:  I think I lost 1/2 my brain cells over that.  Do not repeat.)  Now to prime all the walls!  (continued in Part two)