New Craft Room Coming
Many of you may have followed my “blogging journey” these past 6yrs… it all started relatively easily when Red Ted was 2yrs old and I was “looking for something” to do with him. I have always loved crafts and had a decent supply of things to craft with – some paper, paints, glues etc… and so we started to make. I particularly have a love for recycling “old stuff”, which is a fabulous way to get crafty – environmentally friendly and thrifty and always a creative challenge. Over the years however, we have accumulated both a MASS of craft supplies (oh how I can’t resist them), as well as a HOARD of things we have made that I **simply have to keep**.
Add to that an explosion of toys and the mess that little (and big) people create and we have a house that is bursting at the seams (almost literally but not quite).
So it was time for me to rethink our house. What space did we have? And how were we using it? Were we using it well? And was it meeting our needs? I am most definitely can say “I work from home now” and increasingly The Englishman is working flexible hours from our home too. Something needed to change.
There is no space (or planning permission) to extend (plus I don’t have the stomach for the disruption of an extension.. so we need turned our attention to our already existing loft conversion – currently used as a guest room, part time office and dumping ground.
On closer inspection, with some clever fiddling around of bathroom, stairway and doors, we realised we could fit, not one, but TWO bedrooms in. Not massive ones mind you, but big enough for a child’s bedroom (3x3m) and a guest room + office (3x4m with sloping roof)… freeing up a box room downstairs as an office and craft storage *for me*. Which means that the biggest room of the house (i.e. the loft), no longer is used part time and for storing stuff we don’t actually want or need, but just dump to get it out of site and out of mind.
It also gave us an opportunity to make it *nice* and just as we want it. The previous owners had laid a rather unimpressive laminate floor – that easily got scratched and had ill-fitting beading (is that the name?) skirting boards. Let’s really make our house a home!!
We are trying to do all the work to a good quality without it all costing the earth – we want it to look nice, last (especially with the now 8yrs old Red Ted moving up there), but also not cost the earth. Luckily, I have a very helpful builder who has been great at helping us choose, bathroom fittings, doors, and the floors – I think a nice floor makes SUCH a difference to a house and we came up with this one wood finish floor from Wickes (what do you think?!).
Can you imagine it with some nice flooring?
We also be depending on our trusted IKEA for some great storage solutions (in both Red Ted’s room and my future office), including some of these fabulous LEGO/ IKEA wall art/ storage idea from Frugal Fun 4 Boys:
Isn’t it genius?
So. Watch this space… I will share some photos of the finished spaces in a few weeks’ time – as I know the craft community loves seeing some finished DIY home make overs (I just wished I had taken some “before photos”… I totally forgot… so sorry! I only have WIP pictures… ha).
Yep… that is half of the second room as it looks today!
Anyway… wish us luck!! The decorating is about to start and I can’t wait!!!
Disclaimer: I approached Wickes to see if they would be interested in working on this project with me and they kindly agreed to supply the flooring. Thank you. We are SO excited to be working with you!