The Embarrassing Room Returns!

... And it is no longer nearly as embarrassing as it once was!!

The plan all along was to reorganize my extra room but a link party motivated me to get it done faster, and boy am I glad I did! Can't wait to unveil it over at
Lovely Crafty Home!

Our extra room in the house is a multi-functional space. It is my sewing/craft room, my vanity space, husband's guitars, my clothes, ironing board and other random stuff. There was a lot of purging, Goodwilling and old fashioned organizing to get this space together but it is finally done. I have several photos for you to enjoy!

As a reminder here is the before photo and a link to the original post about the room. I made it small to spare you to heartache of its awfulness:

So, the flooring. Ya like that hot and steamy blue carpet?! Ooooh yeah!! 

GONE!

 

After my fabulous husband and his friend installed the flooring I got to chime back in with the real fun; bringing all the furniture in to the room and arranging it where I wanted it.

Quick and not so exciting glimpse of the closet and entry area (door is to the left). Still planning to hang and recover the ironing board to match.
(Here is a link to the ironing board cover!)

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My vanity went in to the far outside corner of the bedroom from the door where the guitars were once hanging. I bought wood boards from the craft section at Walmart several months back, used batting, fabric, ribbon and a staple gun to create the hair clip holder. On the other one I added mug screws to hang jewelry from. I'm not a big jewelry person so it works for me.

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My sewing table went right along the entrance to the room. I wanted the backside of it to be free from the wall so that fabric could easily flow down especially when sewing something large, which came in very handy when sewing the table skirt I made for it. This would also be the first time I have sewn a pleat, which wasn't so hard! I bought a large velcro package from Hancock Fabrics with a 40% off coupon (final cost $4 and change) to help hold it in place yet make it easily removable for washing.

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Last year I bought this chair (plus the one at my vanity) from Walmart for $30. It was an expense but I was having an awful time finding two matching, sturdy, and nice-looking chairs anywhere else. The padding is a brown leather look so I purchased an accenting dark pink checkerboard fabric to match the flowers on the table skirt and hot glued it to the chair!

Both fabrics cost me about $20 but I bought a lot planning to do the ironing board cover & curtains which have not been done yet.

As you can also see, the table is a functional hiding spot for my husband's guitar amp which needs to stay in this room but is just too ugly and bulky to be out and about! Speaking of which, his guitars got moved to where my spool rack once hung next to the window.

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This is the inside corner to the right of the vanity and directly behind the sewing table. On the floor shelf I've organized embroidery attachments, my file folder for patterns, accessories and my beloved stereo. No sewing space is complete without a stereo for relaxation :)

The wall shelf is pretty self-explanatory. It's home to a few special books, photos, a couple of jars for buttons and tiny notions, a basket of scissors, then the curtain rod I used to hang elastics, measuring tape, and ribbons!

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The is the inside wall where the vanity once was. I painted the saying up last year right after I painted the room. Thought it was perfect for me! I decided to hang the spool rack I made from an old coat rack underneath it that way it fits in with the area, and is easy to reach when I'm sewing.

What I love most is that I have space on my floor even in this tiny room where I can lay things out, and it's not being put on carpet!! Oh that carpet was sooooooooooo nasty.... old, nasty.

Hope you enjoyed the room make-over! Nothing incredibly fancy but for something that was almost all DIY and cost me around $25 to get the finished product I wanted, I am happy! This room now holds the title for most organized and least cluttered spot in the house :)

~Lisa~

Oh no, I'm Really Embarrassed

Say what you will when you see this but I'm joining the

 

I saw Rachael's post (over at Lovely Crafty Home) this afternoon and the second I read through it I felt her pain and can sympathize 100%. So I got up off the couch, took my phone to my sewing/vanity room, snapped a picture, and am now putting myself in the FIGHT to get this room organized! The first step is admitting you have a problem... right?!


Ohhhhhh *nervous*
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Ok, I'll do it... here you go >_<





Yeah, it's for real. This is where I sew, where I get dressed (the closet is worse with my clothes and other fun.. things..), where I do my make-up, ironing, coats when the living room hooks are overloaded, where we hang Bryan's guitars (and my scarves haha), where we put extras and things we don't have a home for. Oh it's so sad! I used to keep it so clean but I swear, one little project will cause the room to go in to disarray and I get so excited about the project that I forget about the room! It's a down hill spiral!


So here it is, I have until the end of January. *I plan* to make this room cost me zero dollars in the organizational process. Maybe in the future I'll sink a little money in to it but not this month. We HAVE to get the laminate down in this room before I can get started. Already have that stuff on hand. Not worth reorganizing on the ugly carpet if I'm just gonna have to pull everything out and start over. 


My biggest issue is getting hubby on board to tackle the flooring in here by the end of the month. If we can even get it done by the 29th I can totally make this room beautiful again in a couple days... just in time to report the results over at the Party. Maybe I'll win the $15 Starbucks card Rachael is giving way!


I think I'll have to be in a constant state of prayer in order to salvage my little junk hole here... But it CAN be done!!! I have FAITH!!!




See you at the end of the month....
~Lisa~

Desk/Vanity Redo

THIS excites me!!! 

I have been itching to redo of a piece of furniture (paint-wise) for a while. 

I finally did it!!

Last year I got a desk from my mom. 
Well, really it was from my aunt and uncle but my mom came by the house with a big desk in the back of her truck.

I told her she surely did not need any more furniture in her little house so convinced her to let me have it. Since then it has served a convenient purpose in my extra room, especially when I got my sewing machine in December. 

Can't beat FREE!!

In September of last year I also decided to go buy a vanity (or anything I could find that would work) to use as a vanity table. I have Plantar Fasciitis so standing in the bathroom for an extended period of time to do my hair/make-up was very hard on my feet. I found the perfect little desk with all kinds of beautiful potential... I think I paid $25-$30 for it.

I'm slowly in the process of trying to put our house together and I really wanted to get my sewing room set up the way I want it. That involved moving my vanity from my bedroom to the sewing room. After standing back and looking, everything was so mismatched and it drove me crazy!! Sooo... a little hunting around online and I decided to repaint the desk and vanity to match so I could get the ball rolling on the decor process.

My Inspiration: 

Kammy's Korner: The Desk I was Loathing

After a little color debate I settled for pink and white 

...and this is what I got...

I decorated it with perfumes and pretties my mom gave me that she inherited from my recently passed Mamaw. I think they made a beautiful addition.

Forgot about the white mirror I had tucked away.. PERFECT fit!
I was using a big square brown-framed one from Kirkland's. Got this white mirror off Craigslist last year originally for my bathroom whenever we redid it. Still have not redone it...






I LOVE the new knobs I bought for it! They are like a pewter color... $5 for all of those brand new!! 
(at a local store that sells stuff they buy by the truck loads from department stores and such.)

In the finished product I got rid of the shelf that was in the top right corner, and the shelf on the bottom right, as well as a roll-out keyboard tray that was attached under the desk.

I'm definitely thrilled at the results!!

I won't get in to too many details about how I did everything. It's pretty simple. Sanding and painting. 

A couple notes: I do not recommend spray paint for this. I used it at first and had to go out and buy a paint+primer in one paint to finish the project. I only used the spray paint ultimately for the metal legs on the desk as well as the black rubber-like strip that went around the outer edge of the desk. It was the only way I knew to make it white. Give that stuff plenty of time to dry! It took nearly 2 days for it to not be tacky to the touch any longer. Rubber is not easy to paint apparently!

In total, this project cost maybe $30 for the stencil, paint, and hardware. 

Be Inspired!

#1 Most viewed project of 2011!!
2011 In Review - 2012 So Much To Do! 

Fabric Bolts

Before I go too far: This was not originally my idea. I read about it here :)

A few months ago my Mamaw gave me two boxes full of scrap fabric. She had been cleaning out her sewing area and knew that I was getting in to the hobby. It was an absolutely awesome gift for someone like me and I was thrilled to bring it all home.

But I had no clue what to do with it!

It sat in my closet in big clear plastic tubs for a few weeks. I really didn't do anything with it, either. It was such a pain to get to, dig through, and put back. Finding the above link on a forum turned it all around! 

Whodathunk you could display your scrap fabric just like they do in the stores, but on a smaller scale?!

In the above link, the blogger used comic book boards. Unfortunately for me the notion struck me to do this project after the Hobby shop in town closed so hubby rushed me around to a few other stores until I finally got the brilliant idea: foam poster board cut in to rectangles! Dollar Tree, here we come!! I bought 10 boards for a whopping $10. Each board allowed me to cut 9 rectangles. I used a scrapbooking knife that glided very easily through the board. It's D.T. foam board though so not like you're working with high quality stuff, however... I will not complain. It did what I needed!

After cutting all of the foam board up I did pretty well what the blogger did, folded the fabrics neatly to the height of the board and wrapped it around. You'll see in my pictures that they aren't all the same height. 

Yeaaah maybe neatly was an overstatement.

Personally I found it best to pin the ends down in to the foam so it wouldn't slip off the board or become a pain when storing and removing. Ever since I have done this, I have had easier access to all the wonderful scraps my Mamaw game me, plus new fabrics, and have been able to complete more projects.

You can see I did floral prints, linear prints, solids, plaids and so on with my organizing....

I store my fabrics in one of those cubical shelves. I took the fabric cubes out and put them in the top of my closet to store craft stuff, other scraps and project things. My plan is to eventually get another cubical shelf and stack it on top of this one that way I can bring my cubes back out of the closet and of course have more space to store more fabrics.

Obviously not all of your scraps are big enough to bolt. What I did with the smaller pieces was fold them up to about 3 of 4 inch pieces then 'file' them in a plastic shoebox container. That way when I open it I can see all my fabrics from the top, and I can even see them from the outside along the sides of the box. With both the shoebox and the bolts I organized them by prints, solids, plaids, etc. to make it look neater and much easier to locate what you want.

This is probably one of the most organized spots in my whole house. The big thing is once you take fabric off the 'bolt' is to return it to the bolt and store it back. I am still having a hard time with that lol.

Be Inspired!