One of our resolutions for the new year is to get this craft room underway, and since we can’t tackle things like “build a shed” when there is 4 feet of snow outside, I figure no time like the present.

I have been staring at this room for 7 months now, and I have never felt a pull to do anything with it. Even in the last few months I have stepped into the room, full of gumption and drive, looked around and walked out, with a “meh, this is too much work.” Anyone who knows me realizes this is very out of character, and I couldn’t understand after all this time that I had wanted a space like this, I just wasn’t doing anything about it. After contemplating the room, here is why I believe I have dragged my feet:

1: There is no good layout of this room. It’s a tad too small to float a desk, I didn’t want to stare at a wall or have my back to the door or the window. trying to make a bad layout work makes the whole room feel off. If we are going to live in this house for 10 years, I want to do it right.

2. Since the room hadn’t been painted, the closet was empty, the window trim was still dark, and the room was acting as a storage facility, it felt like too much work to tackle on my own. Normally, that doesn’t bother me one bit, but for some reason this room felt overwhelming to me

3. My storage options for the room were limited. I bought a very large ikea piece right after we moved in, but in hindsight, it might be a bit too… big? inflexible? generic? I’m not sure, but I know there are things I want to store that don’t fit in the cubbies, and if they don’t fit in one, they don’t fit in any. With not enough storage, and too much storage that didn’t work, I just started piling everything on the floor  <—bad closet designer, bad!

So I brainstormed and consulted my designer friends and decided to switch the guest room and the craft room. We don’t have many people stay with us, and I am hoping to use this room on a several-times-a-week basis. Here is the new layout:

After clearing out the room, I painted the walls and window trim. Another one of the resolutions for this house is add character; I have decided to change the window trim in all the rooms, and add crown molding where appropriate. No time like the present to teach myself that!

I started by adding wood trim to the top of the window, and added a flat piece across the bottom. All the window trim in the house has this 70’s-esqe beveled bottom trim piece (seen above), I think removing it and replacing it with a straight piece makes it look more updated.

Once the window was done (easy design, straight cuts, and starting anew my romance with our air-nailer) I am moving on to the crown molding. I am doing a double layer to make it more beefy looking. The bottom part is simple; baseboard upside down, flat against the wall. I am mostly all the way around the room with that right now, just gearing myself up for an outside corner (much harder for some reason than the inside corners). Then… The crown. I have to admit, I’ve been talking myself into this all week. I am excited to have the knowledge base to do this, and I am PUMPED about the impact it will have, I just know doing bevel/miter/angle cuts all while trying to make it NOT look like a rookie job is something I will need to really work  on . Plus maaaaaaath. My brain just doesn’t compute that stuff, and all the online tutorials and you tube videos have some many conflicting directions that I need to just dive in and do it. I might be able to finagle my dad into helping me with this and the hubs is out for the weekend. Big changes are coming, wish me luck!