Monday, June 4, 2012

Craft Studio Plans & Mood Boards!

As I shared a week ago, this summer I'm giving my parents' basement a makeover since Ryan and I will be living there once we move back to Missouri and begin our job searches.

Though that'll be a temporary arrangement, my sister and I are redecorating one room in the basement that will be a permanent spot: our craft studio/office space! Basically, after crafting for my wedding, the bug bit us, and we have plans to start our own business in which we'll sell our party crafts, rent out and deliver vintage items for events, and help with client set-up and clean-up. I'll be sharing more details on that as time goes on and more things fall into place.

Of course I’ve been dreaming about our studio space for months since we first hatched our plan. I can’t go too bonkers with décor or furniture in the other rooms since we have an apartment full of things that we'll move in next summer, but since the craft studio will actually be a permanent fixture in our parents’ home, my sister and I are free to buy some new furniture and accessories for the room (and to repaint some of the existing pieces). Of course, we both love a good deal and a little treasure hunting, so we've been thrifting up a storm, plan to hit up garage and estate sales, and DIY as much as possible!

Today I wanted to share the vision we have for the studio space! Of course, no redecorating plan is complete without a look at the before:


Shelves line the left side of the room when you enter through the bottom level doors.


Our old keyboard and some music supplies are on the wall opposite the entrance, so they're essentially the first thing you see. Note the wallpaper border, also--we're planning to remove it.


Looking from the wall where the filing cabinets are, you see a structural beam in the middle of the room, more bookcases lining the other side of the room, and tons of stuff piled on the floor.


The view from the music wall.


The studio has its own entrance, which makes it a perfect place for us to meet with future clients!

So, the space right now is a little rough since it's basically been serving as storage, but it's still full of promise! Once we donate or relocate the stuff that's occupying the room, we'll have a perfect blank slate. Let's examine what we have in store. First, our color palette:


Look a little familiar? Yeah, we realized after picking the scheme that it's quite similar to my blog's! Funny, right? We wanted a fun but professional color palette, and we felt that warm brownish-gray on the walls along with pops of teal blue and goldenrod yellow would look excellent. We'd already been thinking gray when Lowe's made a boo boo mixing our paint and we ended up with two gallons of Martha's Mushroom rather than one--so we were able to buy the other for $5! Score! It'll work great in the studio

Now onto the larger pieces we want in the room:


1. My dad's childhood desk is almost identical to this one that Deana from Alchemy Fine Living redid with a little gray and white paint...plus my mom already started painting it white last summer! It'll make a perfect computer desk for the studio. I think we'll leave it all white, though I am smitten with Deanna's two-tone version, so who knows! Pop on some fun knobs from Hobby Lobby, and we'll have a sweet place to stash our desktop.

2. This eye candy comes from Ashley of Domestic Imperfection--she absolutely transformed her light-grained table by using a stencil, white paint, and stain to prettify its top! We plan to do something similar with a more geometric stencil and my sister's old (well really my mother's old) dining room table, since Megan recently purchased a new one! Score for using more furniture we already own! Since the table is already a darker wood, too, we won't have to worry about staining the piece--we can just use white paint and a stencil. It'll make a great craft work surface, or a place to sit with clients to fill out paperwork.

3. These hardworking shelves from Heather's home prove that you can stash tons on your bookcases without them looking too cluttery--it just takes some lovely organizers and a few decorative elements. Since we'll be stashing lots in the studio--from all our craft supplies (including tons of scrapbook and tissue paper) to our files to the vintage goods we'll be renting out, we need lots of smart but lovely storage space like this. We also think that mostly white furniture with some darker wood (like in the above craft table) will look great in the space.

4. Julie from Inspired by You remade a cute little sewing table. We have a little guy like that to redo, too! I'm not sure if we'll paint the whole thing or go for a more two-tone look to match the stenciled table from above. I think it'd look adorable with a white and teal chevron top and lovely brown legs. Or all white. In either case, it'll be a cute addition to the room, and will serve well as a little entry table, perhaps?

5. Since part of our business will include renting out vintage wares for people's events, we need a good way to showcase a few pieces so that clients can easily see them in person. I instantly thought of Katie's lovely white hutch from Bower Power. She found something at Goodwill to repurpose, but once again the furniture gods are smiling upon us, because my childhood bedroom set is actually white and I have drawers with a hutch that will perfectly fulfill this task!

6. Jannypie's corner craft desk is one to swoon over! We don't plan to make our second work space a corner one, but we are going to use cubbies as legs like she did--more storage space is a major plus! We actually have a white steel door that we plan to use as the table top, and we picked up two of the white cubbies from Target last week, because they were on sale for $20 off. I'll share a tutorial on how we our husbands make the desk once it's done :)

7. We also have a little two tier end table like this guy and we plan to paint him (white? teal? yellow? Not sure yet) and place him in a seating area by the window where we'll meet with clients. What will we sit on?...

8. Two of these cute chairs from Pier1! I received one as a wedding gift from my uncle, and Megan and I plan to purchase another (50/50) once we notice they're on sale. We will probably add a gray settee opposite the two chairs at some point, so that there's plenty of seating for our clients and any guests they may choose to bring.

Of course, no furniture looks good without accessories. Here are some fabulous storage items and decorative elements we plan to bring into the room by thrifting and DIYing:



1. I've been salivating over these chevron bins from Target for months. (Target doesn't have a picture online, but Jen snapped a pic during some window shopping). I'm actually planning on trying to DIY some using clear bins, paint, and a stencil (or maybe vinyl?) I'll be sure to share a DIY once I figure something out :)

2. My mom bought some black wire bins to organize her closet, but it turns out that they weren't quite working out, but instead of returning them, she gifted them to us! Originally we thought of spray painting them to fit our scheme--then we decided they'd look better with some fabric liners, like these by Stephanie at Under the Table and Dreaming. Now we're on the lookout for cute fabric so that my sister can sew them up!

3. You might recognize these cuties from my thrift wish list. Guess what? I found three of them--one at a thrift store and two at an estate sale! Of course, they're not the lovely white color of these ceramic ones, but a little spray paint will fix that. They'll look so cute perched on our shelves or desk. 

4. We're not going to use these exact magazine files--I actually found some gray polka-dotted ones in Target's Dollar Spot that'll look great in the room.

5. I found a look-alike of this wire tray from Pottery Barn Teen at TJ Maxx a few months back. TJ's version was only $6.99. We plan on spray painting it teal and using it to stash desk stuff. 

6. This Urban Outfitters rug would look great in the seating area. Since the chairs already have such a punchy pattern, the light gray and subtle print will be perfect.

7. My mom also gifted my sister and I with two super sturdy metal trash cans (ya know, the good kind they used to have in schools?) We're definitely spray painting them, and might do one in a chevron pattern a la this project from Beckie from Infarrantly Creative. (Obviously we love our chevron).

8. Not to sound like a broken record--but again my awesome mother is giving us stuff to use in the studio! This time, it's two little metal filing cabinets, which we plan to pretty up with some scrapbook paper like Ally did


I'm kinda gaga for task lighting, especially in a craft room like this. I splurged and grabbed two lamp bases in our palette, #4 and #6, from Target, while I scored two #5's at Goodwill for a song! (More on that later). We plan to whip up a few lovely shades--#1, #2, and #3 are our inspirations. I'm particularly loving the look of #1--wouldn't it look sweet atop the light blue base (#5)? 


1. We're definitely painting the "music wall" (the first wall you see upon entering) a teal chevron pattern, just like Kristin's guest bedroom!

2. We probably seem like chevron addicts at this point. We're not, I swear! I don't even have a single bit of chevron in my apartment! This image really just represents that we plan to cover some bulletin boards in fabric to serve as lovely yet functional inspiration boards.

3. Clearly I love gallery walls, as you can tell since I have several in my apartment. We're not going to have one quite this large--we want some of our wall paint to show up in the room!--but we do want to frame a few cute prints (like #7) in crisp white frames.

4. Love those letters that spell out "MAKE." We plan to hang some above the window to spell out "Create." They'll be covered in cute scrapbook paper that matches our palette.

5. We're planning on actually displaying some of our crafts in the studio, because 1) They're cute and 2) Our clients will be able to see what we can do very easily! We'll string up some pennants atop the bookcases and perhaps the doorway like so, make a cluster of colorful tissue paper poufs above the long craft cubby desk, and probably affix some pinwheels to the ceiling beam.

6. Since we'll have lots of papers to store--contracts, checklists, client information sheets, etc.--we'll want some wall storage like this one! Of course the teal color is perfect with our palette, but we'll probably find some when thrifting and redo them. Spray paint for the win!

I'm so excited to really dig in and work on the studio with my sister! We've already begun the arduous task of cleaning out the room, though there's still a lot of work to do on that front. We're looking forward to completing the DIY projects we have up our sleeve. Of course, I'll be sharing updates along the way!




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2 comments:

  1. Big plans for a big re-do!
    I'm excited to see what you can accomplish in these few short weeks of summer.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The space is going to look great, especially with the chevron wall ; )

    ReplyDelete

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