Some people spend a lot of time designing and planning and some people just fly by the seat of their pants (origin of the phrase — because I was curious). I do a little of both. I like to come up with my design, to go in with a plan, but I like to remain flexible enough to allow for creativity along the way and to adapt to changing conditions (like something just didn’t go together as planned).
The second stage of my craft room organization and transformation project is to design where I want to take this journey. What do I think this will look like when it’s done?
Walking you through how I came up with my design may give you some tips for how you can approach your own craft room organization and transformation project.
Designing the New Look!
Designing the Colors
When I started, I had way too many colors of paint from which to choose. I just knew I wanted blue for the walls.
I narrowed it by about half by getting rid of shades that were too green, too purple, or too gray.
The next step was to view the colors under these lighting scenarios:
- Under the bright cool lights that I use for photography
- In the natural sunlight of the craft room at different times of the day
- Under the regular subdued light bulbs in the ceiling fan
Neither of us wanted a dark wall color in that room so I stuck to the lighter ends of the paint chip cards. I didn’t want it to be too light because that could get washed out in the photography lights. Additionally, when we have a house full of guests and don’t have enough room in the house to put everyone on actual beds, we put an air mattress on the floor in this room, so we still want the room to be warm and inviting. That meant a blue that wasn’t too “cold” of a color. Blue is a cool color but it has ranges.
With all that in mind, I picked the color and bought the paint! It is Olympic Touch of Blue OL634.2
You may be wondering about the things on the light switches in the picture above. This house has these types of switches throughout the house and almost every room has more than one switch. We put a clear adhesive dot on the “primary” light switch (so helpful in the bathrooms), and icons printed on clear material for the rest of the switches. In the photo above, the switch on the left are the ceiling lights in the ceiling fan. The switch on the right activates the blades of the ceiling fan.
More on Colors
I mentioned in my Starting Point post that I was planning to paint all the trim in white. That’s still the plan. I also plan to paint the blades of the ceiling fan. The fan blades are made of a pressed wood pulp wrapped in a dark wood design printed on laminate. My plan is to paint them white. I painted the ceiling fan blades in my home office and I love the look. In my post on painting the craft room, I will give you a trick for painting ceiling fan blades.
Designing the Barn Door
The closet door in this room is a pocket door and it is broken. We opted to just leave that pocket door in its pocket and go with a barn door. To repair the pocket door would involve ripping out the wall and the quote for that was over to $250. When we looked at barn door kits for a 40″ wide door, the prices were in the $400-$700 range. That was much more than I wanted to spend. I could have my wall ripped out and the pocket door replaced for less than that. Instead, we have designed our own barn door for less money. In fact, we spent $131 to build the barn door, including the barn door hardware. I will have a cost breakdown when I write what we did to build the barn door.
As for the design of the barn door, I didn’t want it to look like a barn door. My door is more contemporary and will have craft room organization features on the door. I’m looking forward to showing you what we have planned.
Designing the Window Treatments
I have made curtains for almost every house I have lived in. From simple rod-pocket curtains to pinch-pleated curtains, I have made made styles of curtains. I don’t think I want curtains in this room. We are looking at interior shutters for these windows. The ones I’m most drawn to are the flat panel bi-fold style shutters – no louvers. That style will look nice with the new contemporary barn door. We need to do more research on those and decide if it’s something we want to try to make ourselves or just break down and buy them.
Designing the Storage
This is where I got to have more fun with the IKEA planner tool! The tool let me set the colors of the walls and the trim so I get to have a feel for how this room will look. They have many (but not all) of their storage/furniture pieces in the tool. You can even change the colors of the products if they come in various colors.
A couple of weeks ago, we walked through IKEA for ideas. With those notes in hand, I used the IKEA planner tool to see how those products will fit in the room. I had to make some substitutions in their planner tool for some of the things we have picked out that they don’t have in the planner but it gives me a very good idea of where this project will go.
This is the result:
Designing the Roll-Away Table
My husband has this mostly designed. We plan to use two of IKEA’s Kallax 2×2 units, putting them up on a base and sturdy swivel casters (because it has to roll on carpeting). We will add two drop-leaf extensions. That will give us a long work table in the center of the room when we need it. When not in use, it will be small and rolled out of the way. We will definitely have detailed plans on how to make this.
Designing the Lighting Options
(This post contains affiliate links to one or more of the items I used in this project – which means, if you make a purchase after clicking a link I will earn a small commission. There is no added cost to you!)
I like bright lights when I craft… I’ve always been this way. My preference has been to work in the sunshine. Everything is so much clearer and easier to see with bright lighting. Have you ever had to do hand-sewing using black thread on black fabric? Definitely need bright lights for that. 🙂
LED technology has been amazing! Now that the price on LEDs is dropping, I want them everywhere, especially in the craft room.
Since I started taking pictures for this blog, I have gone through a few types of lights and now have some that I love. They are LED panels by GVM that allow me to control the brightness and the “temperature” of the color. They came as a set of two LED light panels, diffuser panels, stands and a very nice carrying and storage case.
We are also planning a track lighting system on the ceiling so we can direct lighting to where we need it. One other thing we are considering is a system of under-shelf LED puck lighting as featured on the Jennifer Maker blog. She makes it look so easy and affordable!
Designing the Fun Details
These are going to be the fun parts of the project! I have a wall in the craft room where I plan to put a pegboard. I love the idea of “a place for everything and everything in its place” and I think a pegboard will give me some of that.
There is another wall where we will add a slat wall panel. My husband acquired some slat wall from a business that moved to a smaller location and planned to dispose of their extra slat wall panels. I get to have one of those in the craft room! I already know exactly where to put that.
The face of the barn door will get some of fun details. On the top third of the door I want to put a cork board, a dry-erase board, or half-and-half (side-by-side). I haven’t quite decided which I’d use most. On the middle third of the door, we plan to attach those angled wall paper holders. They will hold the plans for current and upcoming projects – instead of keeping them on various horizontal surfaces in the room, then getting moved around and lost. We will have enough of them for His and Hers.
I’ll make sure I share any others we do!
Designing is Never Done!
Design feels like an evolutionary process to me. It changes as the projects progress. I get inspiration from others which takes some of my ideas in different directions over time. As the plan changes, I will come back to this post and note where the design has gone off in other directions.
If you are thinking about approaching any room organization or transformation project, consider doing some planning and designing up front. Get some of your ideas down on paper or in pixels. You can use graph paper, cut pictures out of magazines, use specialized room design software, or free-to-use applications like the IKEA planner. Use Pinterest to search for lots of ideas. Find Facebook groups for room organization and design. Resources to help you are out there and there are communities of people who are doing the same thing. Dive in and have fun designing your craft room! I mentioned Jennifer Maker earlier in this post. She has a whole Facebook Group just on Craft Room Organization. The people in that group are amazing! They have incredible ideas and are very willing to share their ideas with the group. You should request to join her group if you are looking for ideas and inspiration.
Are you ready for stage 2? Ready or not, pin this to your favorite Pinterest board to remember some of the tips for how to start the design stage of your craft room organization and transformation project.
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