House Tour – The Craft Room

The house is a disgraceful mess of half stripped walls and jobs that need doing but we can’t quite find the time to do and really not ready for the guests we have this weekend. But the space that I escape to when it’s overwhelming me is my little haven on the top floor. My craft room. It might seem a little excessive to have a craft room, but one of the things we looked for when buying a house was space for Jim and I to distribute our stuff. In my case all my incredibly important crafting supplies, in his case computer games, drum kits and that sort of crap! We were lucky with this house because it came with 4 bedrooms, 2 of which are on the top floor and and could easily be used for this. They are slightly dubiously decorated, but hey, we’ll just have to live with that because due to our limited budget, we’ve decided to ignore decorating these rooms for the foreseeable future and just work with what we have. 

The brighter of these rooms was the back one, so I chose that for the craft room. It’s also a *fun* shade of mint green woodchip which works better for a craft room than it does for a boy den don’t you think?

It’s been a pretty cheap transformation and it is no where near finished, but I’m happy with what I’ve managed to achieve so far. The shelves in the alcove were already there so they seemed like the perfect place to store my crafting books, jars of stamps, and ink and stamp making supplies and pretty boxes full of beads. Further down we have gift bags and envelopes and right at the bottom we have a giant box of fabric, it’s mostly scraps. 

The desk is a classic Ikea number. It was slightly annoying as it’s too short for the space, but the longer desk was too long for the space, so for now there is a gap, but I am looking at getting some drawers or something to sit there and not leave such a gaping hole. The desk itself houses my sewing machine, my crafting drawers and this ace desk lamp from Lighting Majestic*. Because I’ll be doing the majority of my crafting and all my sewing at the desk I really needed something that would light the whole space in the evenings and well, during 80% of the year in the UK and this is just the ticket. Plus it looks so pretty too. When I get the extra storage I’ll probably swap the lamp and the crafting drawers over. I think that’ll make more sense in the long run. I just need to find the right unit.

Above it we have a pocket folder with ideas and notes and things in and to the other side it’s my re-purposed kitchen hangers from Ikea again. They are perfect for storing Washi tapes and twine and the likes.

And under the desk we have a shoe rack turned printer stand. I saw this on Pinterest and picked up this little number to give it a go, and look, it’s perfect. Printers on top and that middle shelf, well, it is as if it was made perfectly for the Cricut isn’t it? I’ve not posted much about this beauty as there hasn’t really been much in the way of space to use it so when I have had it out I’ve done fun things with it, but they haven’t been blog worthy. I see bright things in it’s future though. Especially as I have sticker and fabric transfer paper for it! Hello all the wall and tshirt decals!

The view from the desk isn’t bad either is it?

The shelves were reclaimed from my brothers bar when he renovated. They were really long so my dad cut them down for me (and fitted them) but they are pretty perfect for storing everything although one day I might get round to painting them a fun colour. I love the fabric baskets too. They were just cheapies from Dunelm but I love the way the pink looks against the turquoise. 

I’d love for them to be perfectly sorted and all organised but for now, I at least know where everything is and can see what I have. And what I have learnt is I have a LOT of glitter, a nice selection of spray paints, a great collection of soap making supplies, loads of papers and cards and more zips than necessary.
And to make sure the room was functional, we added a futon in here so that we can have guests stay and not have to blow up air beds for them (I even fitted a blackout blind!) Most of the time it’s a sofa, and a place Flash likes to play with things he’s found on the floor and really shouldn’t be eating!

Now, I know that it’s not as fancy as some of those perfect all white beautifully put together craft rooms that you see on American blogs but I love it up here and you know what, I think it might be better than those fancy ones because, well, it’s on the top floor of my house not thousands of miles away. What do you think?

Also, if you’re one of my 3D friends and you pop by unexpected and it’s this tidy, please tell me off. Its a craft room, I think the purpose of it is to be a mess (but if you tell me you’re coming you know I’ll tidy up, because well, that’s just what I do).