I’d love to tell you I’ve been off training for a marathon or researching a cure for cancer, but my absence of late can simply be attributed to an abundance of volunteer commitments, Grandparents in town, and binge-watching House of Cards.
I’m deep, I know. 😉
But I have been making slow, but sure progress on the smallest, but one of the most frequently used rooms in our house. It’s about a 10′ x 15′ all-season sunroom off the Living Room. The sellers used it as an office, and when we first saw the space from the listing below, we thought it would make a quaint little library.
I envisioned club chairs and perfectly staged bookshelves where The Husband and I could read The New York Times together on the weekends while snow fell outside. Clearly, I’ve bought the Connecticut Dream, hook, line and sinker.
So we set it up, and it was a lovely little room.
To look at.
Since we never actually used it.
Because we used both the Living Room and the Family Room all the time, and that was clearly more than enough for just four people. As much as we are big readers, we just didn’t need a third space dedicated to books and chairs.
But you know what we did need?
A space dedicated to homework, crafts and projects.
As beautiful as the Kitchen Renovation Project turned out, because we don’t have an eat-in kitchen, there’s not table space at which to work on school projects. And while we use our Dining Room daily, we need that space for meals, and therefore, leaving my sewing machine or a math poster out, just isn’t practical.
So it occurred to me this small room had amazing potential to serve many purposes for The Cuties and me, and we got to work. We’ve updated the hardware, tossed the ancient mini blinds, repaired damage to the beautiful shiplap {check me out, Chip & Joanna!} and gave the whole place a fresh coat of paint. I wish I had taken before shots of the light fixtures, but let me just say that track lighting was involved – on the wall – in almond. And the sconces got worse from there.
from the Living Room~
{and yes! that’s a door, so when a project is completely in medias res, we can simply closed the door and hide the mess!}
Our work space ~ this table is on casters, so when a project is bigger than the table or we want to spread out on the floor, we can just push the table off to the side.
Printer, file cabinet and storage for wrapping and large washi paper. And how many different spaces {and houses!} do you think that Pottery Barn Moss Initial Hack has appeared in this blog now?
This narrow bookcase holds all of my machines: scanner, Silhouette Cameo, sewing machine, embroidery machine and my cameras. I love having everything so easily accessible.
Here’s my tiny little desk area. It’s just enough space for my laptop, my project notebooks, and my calendar. We’ve yet to figure out what those small cabinet doors were originally used for, but now they hold poster board, gift bags, and the largest one stores our extra leaves for the dining room table down the hall.
And here’s all my happy.
I love that everything is bright and colorful and labeled for easy identification. The Cuties can find whatever it is they need, and just as important ~ can put things away exactly where they belong. Things we use most frequently are out on the shelves, and my fabric stash, extra office supplies, and less-used crafting items are stored in the lower cabinets.
{I keep trying to convince The Husband that since there’s still space left in those 1.5 gallon jars, clearly there’s room to buy more washi tape!}
In addition to being incredibly practical, this room was done on a budget. I shopped the house for containers and repurposed everything and anything I could find. I made reusable vinyl chalkboard labels with my Silhouette machine, and the round wood and chalk tags are from the Bullseye Shop at Target. To better coordinate with the new lighting, I sprayed the pulls and jar lids with gold spray paint.
The light in this room is one of the best features.
This photograph was taken without a flash on a rainy afternoon without the lights. Underground. 😉
I kid, I kid.
If you need me, guess where you can find me.