03 June 2007

My "Studio", Part II

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The studio is finally looking like a creative playspace instead of a toxic waste dump. The Wise and Bearded One kindly installed shelving and brackets from Home Depot along the one side wall. It's not a sexy solution but it was the cheapest, strongest one---less than $50. As you can see, we have a lot of IKEA organizing boxes. We'd probably have even more, except the Portland IKEA doesn't open until this July (YAY!). I had this old IKEA rectangular paper lamp that was looking pretty beat up so I tookit apart and made it a new shade out of some bright summery fabric. It only puts off a little bit of light but it helps out when I'm ironing at night.

(Pictures go in order from right to left)

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The square boxes that have fabric in them are actually IKEA c.d. boxes that I re-purposed when Nate reorganized our c.d. collection. The rolling cabinet, I picked up off of Craigslist for a song about a year ago. I just used some acrylic craft paint to give it a cheerful face.

One thing I really don't like is the floor. It has scuffed up old brown paint. I wanted to paint it a darker color with a fun pattern like this, but Nate's convinced he wants to strip and refinish the wood some day. Since this room will likely be our master bedroom once we add a bathroom upstairs, I guess I can live with a nasty brown floor for a while.

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Nate installed two "idea boards" for me on both sides of the window. The are homosote boards that I covered with linen. I snagged the sewing machine cabinet for free at a Neighborhood Cleanup the other week. It actually has a fully-functional old HEAVY sewing machine in it. I sewed with it a little bit but since it came sans instructional manual, I can't figure out how to do much on it besides straight stitches.

I needed more light over the sewing machine at night so I got these three at Cost Plus/World Market. Only one actually has a bulb in it, since I am severely limited in the number of electrical sockets in this old house. In the center of the room is my work table. I picked it up at IKEA a couple of years ago. I like that the height can be adjusted.

Now that the craft space is a little more organized, I hope to make better use of it. But, that might have to wait a couple of more weeks until school is out.

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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Way to go! I does look better, but it mostly looks much more user friendly. Have fun!

Margie in Oakland said...

Great job on the studio-so creative in design and so budget friendly. It reminds me that you really can make a space work with the things you already have or with cheaper cool stuff. Very inspiring. And, I love the cool baby stuff you made, impressive.

Deb said...

Kris, it really does look a lot better. I'm not sure the pictures show it as well. I threw out several bags of trash but I don't know that you can tell that from the pictures either :)

Margie, thanks for commenting on my blog.

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