My new craft room!

Hope you are all having a good weekend. I am here with an update on my little mini indoor craft room! It may seem that I am making a big deal about my new space of 1 x 2 m in what was the old larder of our house, but I had completely given up hope of any dedicated indoor craft space of my own as our house is quite small. I had carved out a corner of the living room, but it made the room seem messy and cluttered. It was only when my OH asked for help to access the window in our old larder which was used to store cleaning materials and recycling I started to cook my idea! This picture shows the "before" state, after we had stripped off the old wallpaper and carpet. Although it looks awful I suspect anyone with an older house can relate to this sort of look! Our house was build in the 1890s.

My OH has been a trooper, patiently replacing skirting board, painting and wallpapering. This is the stage I showed last time with the wallpaper giving a clean, fresh blank canvas.

The colour I chose for the walls was a chalk paint in a pea green colour. It seemed very dark at first after the bright white, but I am used to it now. This pic shows how we were designing a two layer desk top. Note the spacers which are 4 jars of chutney and jam! Very technical approach there! I had wanted a two layer desk for ages so I could stow my guillotine under my work surface. This was something I have seen on Pinterest and pinned onto my Craft Room ideas board which has grown completely out of hand with over 800 pins!

The blue drawers don't match very well, but I was trying to recycle what I had as this is a trial at this stage to see how it works. This also means that we have not put any shelving onto the walls, but we will later if it all works out in the longer term. The four drawers each side hold Kitchen roll and baby wipes, folding boards and die cutting plates, watercolours, pan pastels, Treasure Gold, colouring pencils, adhesives, embossing supplies and heat guns, brushes and sponges and gems and embellishments.

This is the desk with all the "stuff"  added. Essential tools, pens and brushes are all close to hand. The lower shelf now holds the guillotine as planned and two wooden trays of work in progress. I can tuck my cutting and glass mats down the left side of the drawers and I have added a couple of plastic boxes of stamps in my knee hole, one of which provides a comfy foot rest. A caddy to the left on top of the ink pad racks holds essential cardstock supplies. The containers with telephone boxes are waiting to be painted black, but are a very useful size for brushes, scissors etc.

Once again my lovely cassette racks are pressed into service for my ink pads. They fit nicely against the wall and this one has all my acrylic blocks stowed above in an Ikea Perspex container.

Excuse this rather blurry pic, this is the unit you can see to the right against the wall in the pic above. I had to move it in order to take a photo! This was a little Ikea wooden drawer unit, currently minus its drawers which has been pressed into service as a narrow shelf unit. My OH has fitted it with castors for me so it can be moved easily. I am using it to house 6 x 6 pads, boxes of punches and most of my Bigz dies. My Distress Ink carousel is housed on the top. You can see my die cutting machine on the floor. I miss having space for my Big Shot, but am going to try and make myself use the new one as it is so much more compact as well as being able to cut up to A4. Not far away I have access to my die collection, coloured card and card blanks.

I finished off by adding a present from a special friend, a panel by Kelly Rae Roberts as this reminds me of the special friendships that crafting has blessed me with.

Hope you enjoyed the "tour" around my new tiny space. I think I have crammed in as much as I dare without making it all feel too cramped and cluttered! Before long I hope to be sharing some lovely things I have made there!!!

Elaine