Sunday, November 7, 2010

craft center

I started with some striped wall and painted furniture inspiration, and lo and behold, I've schemed up the transformation of an unfinished basement corner into a cozy little craft center... By repurposing old furniture and raiding the paint leftovers from the rest of the house, I even did it on quite a budget.

First things first, I cleared out the odds-and-ends storage from the space, scrubbed down everything, and vacuumed up a bunch of cobwebs from the ceiling. We have quite a clean unfinished basement, but it's still a basement.
basement corner, before

I bought some serious primer just to seal off the walls a bit, and then all the stripe colors are also done with leftover paint from other rooms. I took one of my favorite inspiration pictures and turned the stripes to vertical, as those are easier to tape out straight (shorter lines!), and I must say I was quite pleased with myself for coming up with a pattern that required taping only once.

First, I measured out where the lines would be and then penciled them onto the wall using a level as my straightedge. Then I taped off the two-inch white lines (would have been easier to use 2-inch wide painter's tape, but I had the 1-inch stuff around, so I just did two strips next to each other), and then pressed it all down with a putty knife. After all that, it was on with the paint and then off with the tape. It did require a bit of touch up as the unevenness of the concrete walls allowed a little paint to seep under the tape, but overall, it wasn't so difficult.

tada!

The table was something we had in our old apartment, repainted to fit the new color scheme with paint I already had, and the chairs from our old apartment happen to fit nicely with scheme as is. The rug was an inexpensive find at Ikea, as was the hanging light ($5 for the shade, $3 for the cord!). I also brought in a floor lamp that we weren't using anywhere else since the basement lighting isn't great.
table, pre-makeover

table and chairs, after, with my Martha Stewart
holiday idea magazine ready for action


And for storage of all my supplies, I used several inexpensive shelving things that used to be in our closet, and I got one more (with doors) on sale at Target, plus the wacky wooden shelves that somebody built in the basement years ago. I'm planning to put up a peg board as well for some additional storage space - scoped out for about $6 at the hardware store.
store the pretty stuff on the open shelves; baskets
of additional supplies go inside the cupboard



I think I spent about $75 on the whole thing, and it was quite fun to scheme up and do. Of course, there's danger of spending a lot more $ on craft project supplies, now that I have a place to work!

[shared here]

14 comments:

  1. you have a blog i don't know about!?!

    it's very nice.

    your craft area is very cool.

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  2. just waiting to get some content up before i revealed! lots more to come...

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  3. So cute! How wonderful to have your own space...Great!

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  4. those stripes are so fun! i want to stripe a wall in my house, but i just don't ahev the right walls! :) too weird of a layout. yours looks great!

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  5. Great job on this room! Way to go with the stripes for sure. Found you via Primitive & Proper :)

    Meredith @ Welcome to Heardmont

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  6. I'd love to have a basement to create in! You did a great job on taping off all those lines...I've done that before and it is tedius! What a fun wall.

    Christa

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  7. What a great space for you!!! Good work! Thanks for the sweet comment on my table. I have some "chevron" like tape too if you want to try it....happy to send some your way! Email me! Allisonbaker44@msn.com

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  8. This is so cute! I love the stripes on the wall to make it more fun : )

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  9. What a cute crafting area! I can't wait to have a house so we can really settle in and I can have my own space!

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  10. Bravo!! What a great change!! Looks like a great place to get away and craft!!

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  11. We love a great reveal. Or rebeal to quote Maggie.

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  12. OH MY GOD !! WHAT AN AWESOME TRANSFORMATION. I love the painted stripes on the wall. We tried something similar in the boys study with red,white and yellow to brigten the place and it did a good job at that. Its amazing that you did all that in just 75 !! WOW
    Will visit you again.
    Please feel free to pop over at my design studio which is so so cluttered but its still my little haven !
    http://doodlebuddies.wordpress.com/my-craft-room-design-studio-craft-studio/
    Regards
    Naush
    A creative Mom in Dubai

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  13. Great before and after! Love your space!

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