Basement Craft Room

When mom was here she helped me to clean our basement in preparation for Sofi Sue's birthday party.  So for the first time in months my craft room was presentable enough to take pictures of.  It is a work in progress, but it is a very low priority.  That means that in a few years I might get around to doing some of the things that I want to do to make this room more girly and fun.  Here it is!

The view from the laundry area towards the kids' play rooms.  I've had that branch hanging over the doorway since high school!

Now, I call this my craft room when, in fact, it is more of a craft hallway or pass through.  When we bought the house the basement was set up as a small apartment and this was the kitchen.  On the left is a hook up for a stove and on the right are the cabinets and sink.  A sink is a useful thing in a craft room and the cabinets are great storage so those stayed.  The old stinky fridge that was in there, however, left.  I even got $50 for it from ComEd for getting rid of an outdated appliance!

This is the antique cabinet I bought years ago and used as a craft storage cabinet before having kids.  Then, when my craft room became the nursery in our old house I put a changing pad on the metal counter and it became a changing table.  When Sofi Sue came along I added the flower and heart stickers and now it has come full circle and is back to housing craft supplies.

Wall of Yarn

My awesome sister-in-law Judi kindly donated these plastic buckets.  I screwed them directly into the wall (you can see the empty one on the left has three screws in the back) and then shoved as much yarn as would fit into them.  I also have a couple upright for knitting needles and whatnot.

My card catalog was a lucky freebie.  Years ago when I first got out of college I worked at a catholic school.  They were dismantling the library and getting rid of this, so I scooped it up!  It used to be nicely organized and labeled, but now there are just supplies shoved in willy-nilly.  Some day I would like to reorganize and label it.  Above the card catalog is a little romper that Tim wore as a toddler and my Aunt Sharon's dress that she wore to my parents' wedding.

Here is the sink and cabinet area.  I'd like to paint the cabinets light pink at some point in the future.  I added some tension rods to hold ribbon.  This seems like a great idea, but is a total pain in the butt once you use up a roll.  It is extremely difficult to remove the tension rod and pull off the ribbons, so I have just left the empty rolls hanging.  Above that is a shelf where I have put my crafty books.  There's also an Ikea magnetic knife holder I accidentally bought more than 10 years ago.  I meant to buy one, but since they are magnetic three of them stuck together and ended up coming home with me.

This is my work area.  I bought a semi-cheap table from Ikea.  I would have preferred something used but I really wanted to have a table and didn't feel like waiting around for something cheap or free to show up.  This is where I sew and occasionally do other crafts.

This entire website has awesome wall paper!

I was hoping to put up this gorgeous wall paper but ended up deciding not to spend money on that right now.  There are a lot of other things that need to be done to my house before I get to the craft room.  So I decided instead to start hanging all of the random semi-art I had hanging around.  I know I have a lot more to hang, I just haven't unpacked all of the junk from my old house yet.  The goal is to cover the entire wall with pictures and color and pattern.

So that's it, my craft room in progress.  There is also a large closet that I can't show you because it is blocked by boxes of fabric, but really all that is in it are boxes of fabric so it isn't very picture worthy.  I'm hoping to use up a lot of my scrap fabric on a project for Sofi Sue's bedroom.  I'll show you that project when it gets underway!