Move'n In!

Hi Everyone,
Finally it is time to start moving all my supplies into the new craftspace.  I have been rushing home from work everyday and bringing things in little by little.  I have a lot of cleaning to do along the way as all my boxes got pretty dirty and beat up while being in storage. I just can't believe how fast it all came together.  I have to give Paul most of the credit.  I would say "I need" and he would say "No problem"  He did an awesome job reworking shelving, running wires and making my new work space exactly like I wanted.  Thanks Paul, you get the husband of the year award for sure!!  So I really need to go back to the beginning and show you pics of a few things.   Here is a picture of a shelving unit that I saw in the ABC Distributing Catalog.  I loved it the minute I saw it.

It sold for $25.99 plus shipping.  I liked it so much because the shelves are just under 7 inches deep.  I thought this would work out great for the shelving above my work desk.  I bought 3 of them and when they arrived I loved them even more because I knew I could switch them up a bit and create an entire wall of shelving for less than $100.00.  Paul needed to make some adjustments to the hanging hardware because they are not designed to hold the amount of weight I was planning on.  Here is a picture of how they came out:

I know it doesn't look like much but that is 93 X 72 inches of shelves.  Here is a picture of how it looks now that it is filling up with all kinds of crafty goodness:

Love!!! Paul cut me 2 panels of sheet metal from my original magnet board so that I could still have my favorite embellishments right at hand.  Here is a close up:

I love having my work desk back. If I need a ruler, It's right there.  Scissors right at hand as well.  It came out great and there is a bit of room left up high for some decorative things.
Next I started to work on the paper storage.  I have been trying to organize it in between opening up boxes and unpacking things.  Here is a before and after picture of the Ikea Billy bookcases.

 Wow, they are filling up fast! I decided to switch up the basket side with the machine side so that from the entry point it would be a cleaner look.  But as you can see there will be machines on both units.  In the top picture you can see where Paul made me a top for the black drawer unit.  The top is recycled from Rory's bed frame.  It was part of the headboard. Paul cut it down and made plugs to fill the screw holes.  It came out great and gave me another work surface.
I didn't want any curtains in this room but the window moulding is shot.  There are paint splatters all over so I thought I would add some curtains.  I bought sheer curtain scarfs from the SwagsGalore website for $15.00 each.  The panels were 40 X 216 inches.  I had them draped and swaged and just didn't like it.  So not to waste the fabrics or have them live in my linen closet I decided to run them across the top of the window and across the top of the closet.  I cut them in half at the width and used 40 X 108 inches on each.  All I did was hang cheap hook from Lowes, pulled the fabric through rubber bands, gave the fabric a twist and there you have it, my 2 treatments for $30.00.  Here's the pictures:

I am pretty sure you can tell that I didn't even take the time to iron the panels.  That's because all I wanted to do was unpack more boxes.  Doesn't my new home office area in a closet look cute.  I still have a bit of work to do there. At least my PC is out of the dinning room! And sure enough there are those black drawers again.  I bought every one that I could find at 2 Lowes. In total I have 27 drawers.  So here is how that worked out  I made 2 - 4 drawer units for under the window, 1 - 5 drawer unit next to my work space (my large format printer fits on it perfectly), 1 - 5 drawer unit by the door and 2 -3 drawer units to fit under my work table. These could not have suited my needs better.  I will be labeling them with bookplates that I pulled off of my old metal file cabinet (which Paul is taking for tools)  He will use sticker labels but I wanted a nicer look.  Here is a picture of the plates:

The best part about these drawers is that they are easy to switch up.  I am filling them up and when I am done unpacking I will be able to change them around from rack to rack with ease.
Before I go here is my before and after picture of the room from the same angle.  I just love how it is coming together.

I just can't wait to get some crafty goodness going in this new space. And not to promote crafting and drinking but I think it's time I settle in and enjoy a Martini in my new space

Now doesn't that look yummy!
Thanks as always for visiting and hopefully my next post will be a crafty one!
Lysa

Craftspace Update, I Am On Schedule!

Hi Everyone,
The ole homestead is still on hot mess! We are all running our tails off around here with all kinds of activities in addition to trying to complete the room redos. The end of the school year is upon us.  We enjoyed Rory's solo at her spring concert. She did an awesome job.  Birthdays and graduations, along with a charity project of Sam's have all added up to one heck of a busy family! I have been using vacation time to try to get the painting done and finishing the last room.  I am almost there. Before I give you all a bit of a sneak peak I wanted to show you a few of the tricky tray prizes for a charity event that Sam is participating in for a cancer fund raiser.  We made eight gift bags/baskets for the raffle and they came out great.  No bow work on these because that will be done by someone else.  The bows will dictate the ticket entry amount.  We still have 2 more to do by Monday so I know what we will be doing tomorrow.  Here are 3 of the them:

I love doing baskets.  It is so much fun filling them up with all the goodies.  I hope the event bring in lots of money for their donation.  This event is person specific and it is my understanding that this patient is in great need because in addition to being so ill he lost his home back in October when Superstorm Sandy hit Jersey.
Now the craftspace is coming along great and I really think I will make my July 3rd target date to move in.  I will be using more of my vacation time for the July 4th holiday to really be finished and moved in.  Every time I walk into the room I get excited about moving all my crafty good supplies into their new home.  Here are a few pictures of how it looks right now:

 It took us all of last weekend to install the barrel fan and the 2 tracks of lighting.  I love both the fixtures.  The track is a metal branch shape and really provides a lot of light.  There are 12 - 50 watt bulbs.  Paul installed a dimmer switch so that I can tone them down when needed.  The fan is cool too.  No more blades to clean.  It operates independently from the tracks and the little center light makes for a great night light.  The leaves on the fan and the tracks don't really match but hard as I tried I could not find a barrel fan that matched the tracks perfectly.  The wall color is called Sag Harbor and I can see on my screen the picture does not show the true color.  The green is very mossy and almost looks gray at some points of the day.

Here is a bad shot of the Ikea Billy bookcases.  I have glass doors for the center unit that need to be installed.  The first unit will hold machines, the second is for paper and the third is for supplies.  I got those green baskets from Joann's on sale for $5.99 and I had a coupon for 20% off my order. But my real find was those black bins a Lowes.  Here is the ad:

Oh yes, Score! $5.77! When I first saw them they were $14.99.  Then they went on sale for $11.54. I even saw them for $8.08 and then they posted for $5.77.  I bought every one that they had at my local store.  Now I really need to tell you I had to bump them up a bit.  I glued the frame for more strength.  This shelve got a horrible review in the online review section but I knew I could make it stronger with a bit crafty good glue! Paul is cutting a white melamine shelf for the top and they will be linked together with zip ties in the back and inside.  I am thinking this will be my ribbon storage.  I know it can handle the weight because I made one eight drawers high for Sam and it is filled with DVDs. I like these so much I made this unit too.

See the open closet in the background?  I took the doors of the closet off and that is the space for the home office.  I have so much more to do in the next 2 weeks if I want to get my things moved in by the first week of July.  I am loving it all so far and I hope you stop back a visit to see how it comes out.  Wishing you all a great weekend.
Lysa 

The Craft Room Started!

Hi Everyone,
It's a beautiful day here in Jersey and I should be out in the much needed (and awaited) sunshine. Instead I decided if I didn't get started with cleaning my newly acquired room I would not be able to paint next weekend.  I didn't get much done yesterday as I was helping Sam with 3 baskets that she needed to make for a cancer fund raiser so other than getting the furniture out of the room and lifting the carpet out not much was done.  It was really bad in there as we were kind of using that room as a dumping ground during the makeover of the other 2 rooms.  Here is the last picture I took before we started to haul out the rest of the furniture from the room:

If you could see our garage you would bust a gut laughing.  My line lately is "This place is a fireman's worst nightmare!"  Do you remember the picture of all my craft stuff loaded into the garage?(let's revisit that):

I was still able to get my car in there.  Now from digging in boxes, having all the pre-fab furniture arrive and be put together for the other 2 rooms the garage now looks like this:

Oh yeah, That's about where we are at!  See the one small exit path?  That is how we come and go.  I figure in an emergency it's single file only! And if you don't trip on cardboard or wood, you may just get out alive!  All kidding aside, I bet my car is back in the garage sometime around the end of July (or at least prior to the first snow fall).  Something tells me even after numerous trips to the recycling center there still will be a dumpster in my driveway.
Yesterday we lifted the carpet and I started to clean the room.  The floor in this room was in much better condition than Sam's (old), Rory's (new) room.  While the carpet in this room was replaced many times over the years the padding wasn't and as we touched it, it just fell apart in our hands.  With clouds of yucky red dust.  It was awful!  I said to Sam that I could not believe Rory wasn't having allergy problems living in this space.  Once all the carpet was out I swept and vacuumed for what seemed like hours.  This morning when I woke up I began cleaning the floor.  It really was not in bad condition at all.  The only real damage was from the carpet installer who cut the padding in place leaving 2 huge knife gouges in the floor.  This same damage was on the floor in the other room too. Unless the floor has a full refinish I will just have to live with them.  I didn't take a before picture of the floor but I did use the Minwax cleaner and reviver and it came out great.  Here is a picture of my nice clean and happy wood floor:

I am happy with the result and I think once the furniture is in place you won't see to much of the gouges.  I am going to paint this room green, but not the same green as the girls used.  I am looking for something along the line of  a sage or a pale olive type color. The accent colors will be black and white just as in the other rooms.  I hope to be done painting by next week end and working on my work counter and new lighting.  I am so excited that it's time for my room that my mind is racing at the thought of all my craft supplies happily in place in this new space. I just can't stop thinking about how I will be aranging things. Silly I know but crafting is the one hobby that has always been in my life.  I have just always loved haveing a bit of glue and a few bits of this and that to make something.  Better yet making something and giving it to someone.  I just get such a kick out of  that.  It's funny what keep us all going.  You know, that reason to get up and go to work thing.  This is just my thing that makes me smile.  Thanks for visiting and check back to see the paint job.
Lysa

Room 2, I'm Calling It Done!

Hi Everyone,
Oh Yeah!!! Room 2 is D-O-N-E, DONE! I thought instead of rambling on and on I would come up with a before and after picture.  Simply put I love how this room came out.  The little girl is away and hasn't seen it yet.  We made a promise that when she returned home from a family event on her Dad's side she would be able to sleep in her new room.  Paul, Sam, Leon and myself all worked our tails off to make it happen.  Here is a before picture of the room after it was emptied of all Sam's things:

Now,(trying to stay with the same general view) here is what it looks like now:

Awesome! Not a princess or the color pink in sight!  It really is her first "big girl" room.  Ok, her dolls are still here but they should be. Here are some more pictures:

I recycled an old lamp of Sam's. Paul rewired it and I added some vinyl to music it up a bit.

Painted an old mirror black and added some pre-fab dressers (wow, she has 12 drawers). Notice how there are no wires coming from the TV.  Thanks to Paul's creativity he put a faux back that he painted the same color as the wall on the shelving unit.  Saved a lot of time running the wires through the wall.  He did this for Sam too.  We recycled Sam's dvd shelves so that Rory could keep her dvds neat and in place.

Sam dug out all her American Girl things from back in the day and has decided to give most of it to her daughter.  Now, I will say most of it because every time she opened something that was an original Pleasant Co. product (other than her Samantha Parkington doll) she packed it back up.  Sorry, Rory no wicker table and chairs for you! But I will tell you Sam forked over all the late dated stuff like that bunk bed and computer desk.  I would say Rory's collection grew double in size.

I broke apart this $4.00 clock from the dollar store  and added the vinyl decal to it.  I love it, but I can hear it ticking 2 rooms away.

Sam and Leon took care of all the hanging art work.  They spent yesterday printing pictures of NYC and framing them into frames from the dollar store.  They took a little extra time with this shadow box from Target and framed Rory's ticket and Playbill.  It came out fantastic!

Last but not least, Paul was hell bent on recycling Rory's old bed.  Just not to throw out good wood.  So he created a desk for her.  It came out great!  I had some old cork boards that we painted black and added some white vinyl writing to. 
We are all so happy this room is done.  We can't wait to see the little girl enjoying it.  So what's in store for Room 3 you may ask.  Well, I have a picture of my future Craftspace and here it is:

Yup! There it is, 10'X12' of a hot mess! And here is a picture of my budget for the craft room:

Yup, 2 buckets of change! Ok, in all fairness I see a lot of quarters in there.  And I am a pretty crafty girl, so check back a see what happens to the final room of the 3 room redo.
Thanks for visiting,
Lysa

Room 2 Is Almost There!!

Hello, Is there anybody in there? Just nod if you can hear me. Is there anyone home? Oh wait that is just a flash back to my youth! OK, OK, I just needed to express that.  Indulge me if you will as I am a bit off  since we started this whole room redo business.  Can you believe I looked the "Hubs" in the eye and said ...
(and I quote) "I am nothing without my craft supplies" Oh yes, sad, I know .... but I really said that.  And what is really sad was at the time I am pretty sure I meant it.  To be honest I think I said it while I was in the garage, crawling over the snow blower to get to my sewing machine. It may have been when I was in the basement where I put all the "VIP" craft supplies and was digging out my ZING and my rolls of vinyl.  I'm not sure when I said it but I did say it.  So what seems to be happening is that all my carefully packed up craft supplies are now needed for decorating Rory's room.  So I am digging for everything and just making a mess of the boxes and the order of things. The living room and dining room are starting to look like a craft room.  The little one's bedroom is all painted and just waiting for furniture and decorations.  Rory requested a Broadway musical theme, which at first I thought would be fun and easy. True to form I have gone full blown nuts and I am now out of control.  So I go online and look for bedding that has a musical theme.  That did not go so well.  I guess music notes are not "trending" right now.  While I did see a few nice sets, none were available locally.  By locally I mean in the United States.  Sure there are some in China and Canada, but the shipping or the bulk buying made them unavailable to me.  Well then, let's just make it.  Here is a picture (minus the headboard, which is coming this week):

 How cute is her blanket?! I think the first thing I learned to make in Brownies was to tie fabric together.  With today's Polar Fleece it was a snap.  Music notes on one side and solid black on the other side, it came out great.
Next up was her window treatment.  I could not find curtains with music notes after searching for 2 days. Hobby Lobby bailed me out with some sheet music fabric that I made quick strips out of.  I bought an extra set of black sheets so that I could make the strips one side sheet music and the other solid black. Here are pictures of the windows:

How simple is that! And left over cotton sheeting to add a strip to the ready made sheet set, and a pillow too!  Here is the pic:

What's that above the window you ask? That's the awesome vinyl Broadway border we are creating (as we go, I might add) Here are some pics of our Playbill inspired vinyl wall art.

And that music staff! Wow, thanks to MTC and my ZING that is the actual notes to the song Look Down from Les Miserables. Here is a picture of that action:

 You know what my favorite part of this picture is? Why it's the fact that the same tablecloth is in my diaper cake video from 2007. See, I take care of my things! Please check back to see the finished border and room.  The furniture arrives this week and we did recycle some things from Rory's old room.  I can see how excited she is each time she peers in to see how things are going.  I feel blessed and lucky that I am able (along with the Hubs and our daughter Sam) to provide this room and space for my awesome Grand-daughter.  Did I mention she is singing a solo of "castle on a cloud" in her spring concert? My joke of the day is that I think we should make Room #3 a guest room because my craft supplies look right at home in the dinning room (after all, that's where they started out!)  Enjoy what's left of the holiday weekend and check back soon to see the finished room.Lysa

Room 2 - Started!!

Hi Everyone,
First off Happy Mother's Day Wishes to all!!  Today the family is taking the day off for some family time down at Mom's, so it's no construction day here at the homestead. Which is a good thing as I could use a breather from all the room redo stuff.  We did have a chance to get Rory's new room started.  Sam worked all week long getting the rest of her stuff out of her old room, happily filling her new space.  It does look awesome in that room.  In fact it is currently the nicest room in the house!  I was able to get into room 2 to give it a wash down and start to get the walls ready for painting.  No lie, it was a hot mess in there. When the carpet (area rug) was lifted I was a bit disappointed in how the floor has held up. Normally I would not deal with the flooring until after painting but I felt like I needed to know if I could save this floor without bringing in a professional floor company to refinish it.  Not only did I not want to spend the budget money, I want to be able to stick to my schedule and be painting next weekend. I did some fast research and online I saw many floor reviving kits.  I saw Rustoleum, Minwax & Bona.  All great brands.  I chose the Minwax for no other reason than availability.  Please know these kits are for sprucing up a floor and not refinishing.  Our floor most likely needed a full refinish but I thought I would go for the $50.00 fix just to see if it would work.  I will let you decide.  Here are the before and afters of the floor:

BEFORE

In the before you can see that there is hardly any varnish left in the high traffic area. This happened because I did not have a proper backing to the area rug and just the movement of the area rug wore away the varnish.  I won't make that mistake again.  You can see where the furniture and bed were protecting the floor.

AFTER

I took the before picture in the morning and the after in the evening.  Wow, $50.00 and a couple of hours, It sure worked for me.  I think the Minwax reviver did an awesome job!  It states on the label not for raw unvarnished wood but I am glad I gave it a try because it worked great. Now I will have to be super careful when I paint but at least I know I won't be putting in more than an area rug (this time with a proper backing).  So if all goes well but the end of next Saturday I will at least have the ceiling painted and maybe even a coat of paint on the walls.  Thanks for visiting and hope you check back soon to see what happens to this room.
Lysa

Some Final Pics of Room 1

Hi Everyone,
So as room 1 comes to a close and we begin room 2, I thought I would post a few last pics of Sam's new room.  I am sure by now she is sick of me running in there with my camera.  Sam still has a bit to move and hang and I now feel like "my work here is done" I really am happy with the way things turned out and I know I left enough "undone" so that Sam can spend some time decorating her room.  My original plan was to post a bunch of before and afters, however I lost sight of that plan about a month ago. So here are just a few more pictures to show off our hard work:

 Left to do here is the wire covers for the hanging TV and as soon as I have my craftspace back there will be window treatments in black and white stripes and runners for her dressers.

And a cute little coffee table makes for a nice seating area!


 This bookshelf was not planned for here, but it fit nicely. The closet door opens fully and when the bedroom door is open it covers less than half of the bookshelf.  The lesson here is that compromise can be good.
 

Left to do here is the third picture to the lower right of her guitar.  And yes, her clock is counter clockwise as is my lovely daughter who knows how to march to the beat of her own drum.

And what seems to be touching my heart the most is what she hasn't sold, donated or given away.  I am seeing things from her childhood that she has kept for so long.  That is my Steiff Pasha tiger and a troll doll (We call him Poppy). Both have a lot of meaning to us all in the house.
So now it is on to the next room which I am now calling the Music - Broadway room.  To be honest it has a super tight budget and I am not sure how it will come out.  But I can tell you that the little one wants that same green color as her Mom! So don't be surprised when you see this same color with a music note border.  Thanks for visiting and check back when you can as I sure can't wait to get back to some crafty goodness!
Lysa

Pictures of Progress

Hi Everyone,
Oh my it seems like weeks since we started this whole room redo business.  I guess because it has been weeks! This first room has been tough and I am at the end of my home improvement rope.  But, it's OK as things are beginning to come together.  Slow and steady we are moving forward. I won't take any time to bore with words as if I do you will surely read the "tude" in my words.  Here are some pics of Sam's new digs.  Sadly, I think we need two more weeks until she can move in.

And this is just the beginning! There are more pictures to hang on the wall so that is why the picture that are hanging seem so high.  I threw her quilt over the futon so that you could see the awesome fabric for the bedding.  Don't you love our black line on the walls?  That is quarter round and here is a close up.

Just the right touch to bring the green and white together. I hope the next time I sit down to type the room will be done and Sam will be happily filling the room with all her possessions.  Please check in when you can as I just can't wait to get back to some crafty goodness.