Office and Craft Room Update

I hope you guys had a fantastic weekend!

Today, I wanted to re-share my office/craft/family room project because after I shared it a year and a half ago, I immediately agreed to have the space shared in Better Homes and Gardens Magazine . I didn’t want to share too much until the room feature came out.  Since the magazine feature came out last month and the new February issue just came out, I can finally talk a little more about our special room and all of the DIY projects that we did in the space.

 

 

So today, I am re-posting the project, adding a few more updated pictures and linking to all of the projects tutorials that we did in this space.  I wanted to share as much information in one place for those of you who may be considering creating a multi-purpose space in your own home.

Keep in mind as you read this that no space is too small to create a special space like a craft room or multi-purpose space to meet your needs. This room is over our garage is only 250 sq. ft.  So anything is possible and I did it on a very limited budget, as you will see.

 

 

When we did this room revamp back in early 2013, it seemed like this project would never end because we had so many issues to overcome in such a small space.  I spent a lot of my time on the front end thinking through precisely how we would use this space and what we needed.  My goal was to purposefully maximize every square inch.

I guess the best place to start is to show you again what this space looked like before we started the project:

Before:

 

 

This room was our daughter’s playroom and as you can see, we never did much with the space. Because my girl (at the time) was so little, we just wanted a place for her and her friends to play, eat and hangout. We didn’t want to worry about spilled sippy cups and goldfish embedded in the carpet.

Our daughter is 10 years old now and prefers paints and crafts over toys.  I also really needed an office and a craft/studio but we still needed a hangout space for our girl, so we decided to attempt to create a multi-purpose space that will fit all of our needs.

So here is what that same shot looks like today after the revamp:

 

Here is a cool panorama of the room so you can see the space all together.  By the way, a HUGE thank you to my talented photog friend Shay from Lens to Legends for taking all of the awesome photos that I’m sharing today:

click on the panorama shot to see the full size!!

 

Designing our new space was the ultimate challenge for me because I had to really maximize every inch without it looking cluttered.  My goal was to create four distinct purposeful areas; a family room, office, craft area and wrapping station. I also wanted the space to be beautiful and calm but I also had to balance it with functionality and high durability.

 

 

 

One of the most important elements going into this project for me was really the floors.  It was also the first decision I made in the planning process.  My goal was to design a space around unique (and beautiful) floors that are highly, highly durable.  I knew that the floors would tie everything together and  help make the space appear larger than what it is. I also knew I wanted some sort of gray wash look and after weeks of research, I finally found my beautiful gray vinyl plank floors (yep! these are vinyl!!) at Build Direct:

 

 

The vinyl plank floors are made by Vesdura High Performance 5mm in the Century Oak finish.  I cannot tell you just how beautiful these floors are in person and the best part is that they are 100% waterproof and they are really inexpensive!  It’s so hard to believe that they are vinyl because they come in long planks like wood and have a simulated raised wood texture that you can really see in this shot:

 

 

Vinyl flooring has come a long way since my Grandmother’s kitchen floors!

 

 

For more details about the vinyl plank floors and how they are installed, you can check out my previous post here.

My other primary focus when we began this project was the built-in cabinet storage pieces.  I wanted to create as much floor to ceiling storage and work space but I had to save as much money as possible. We saved money by using the wall as the back of the cabinets and ready-made inexpensive kitchen cabinets as our bases:

before:

 

After:

 

We did all of the built-ins and countertops throughout the room for under $800.00! I shared all of the details on how we did the built-ins and ways that we saved money on the built-ins in this post here.

I am also really excited with how my desk turned out and how I was finally able to overcome the challenge of tying in the desk into the counter wrap around:

 

 

It’s hard to believe that my desk looked like this when I started:

 

 

I bought this desk from a friend for $150.00 because it would be a lot less expensive for me to tie this desk into the built ins than starting from scratch.  Tying in this desk was really a challenge for me but I was determined to make it work because the desk had everything I needed.  You can read about the desk revamp and bulletin board projects here.

The table in the center of the room was something else that was a very important element for us as well because it will help us address our multi-purpose needs and serve as a craft table, game table and pizza party table for my daughter and her friends:

 

 

I love how the table turned out and the upholstered cubes from Ballard Designs were exactly what we needed.  They slide under the table, so we can push them in and work around it without having to move chairs.

I painted the table with oil based enamel for extra durability and I also shared a detailed tutorial for this table and how (and why) to paint furniture using oil based paints here.

By the way, this is what the table looked like before and after (this was our old kitchen table):

I also made an ottoman slipcover with dishtowels.  I know it sounds crazy but I loved the Threshold dish towels from Target and shared that project here for those of you interested in making your own ottoman slipcover (it’s easy!):

 

 

Last but not least, if you’re interested in the paint colors that I used for this project, I shared all of the paint colors and palette as well. You can get to that post by clicking the image below:

 

 

 

We have now been using this space for more than a year and a half and it has really been such a joy and inspiration for my daughter and I to have a fun space like this for us to create.  I wish I would have done this years ago because it really was possible to create a dream room in a very small space and on a very tight budget.

There are a lot of projects and organizational tricks we used in this space that I haven’t shared yet and next week, I’ll be sharing a few of those projects as well.

Cheers!

Cyndy