Ta dah! The craft-acular reveal...

Please pardon my absence from blogland this past week, I've been hard at work during nap-time (which is usually when I catch up on blogs) sanding and painting in the garage. Because what better week to finally get to the sanding and painting than the week summer finally decides to arrive with the heat and humidity! My hair looks like a poodle and I'm very thirsty :) but I suffered through and am happy to now have a little place of my own in the basement, whereas before this I never wanted to spend any time down there, much to Sarah and Jason's dismay. I still have to move all my things down there (I want the paint/poly to cure until after we get back from the beach) and need to add all the little touches, but I wanted to show you all my new space now that it's all set up. I apologize in advance if the pictures are lousy - I'm not a photographer, and it's in my basement - oh well. Without further ado, here is the result of all that hard work, with full credit to Matt for his fine craftsmanship, as noted below!

Yes, that's it - way in the back of the play room (actually, it takes up probably 1/3 of the playroom - sorry kids!) is my new 'crafty' area. Moving in a little closer,

There you see the knock-off Pottery Barn craft desk made with the ClosetMaid cubicles. I still need to put the little plastic do-dads on all the screws, and no the bar stools don't match, but what you can't see is the nice molding Matt put around the MDF table top he made to go on the cubicles. The perfect finishing touch.

Another view of the table. William is under STRICT instructions to NOT crawl through the holes in the bookcases, or CLIMB them AT ALL. Or I will kill him. Well, maybe not kill, but he'll be in BIG BIG TROUBLE. Do you see those barstools? Those solid oak, like-new barstools? $2 on ebay. For the pair. That would be, let's see, $1 each. (What kind of nimrod sells barstools on ebay starting at $2?) They haven't been painted yet because I just don't have it in me right now, and they don't need it. But it bugs me that they don't match :) Moving on:

This is the future home of my sewing machine. The desk if from Craig's List, and it's perfect for sewing - I love the bump-out on the front with lots of room behind it, and the drawers will be awesome for all the stuff you need to keep handy; it has a laminate top which, once I thought about it, will be perfect because it won't get scratched up by needles & scissors and stuff. The wall cabinet was hand-crafted by Matt (THANK YOU!). It's huge and perfect. I was looking for old kitchen cabinets to paint, but couldn't find any & didn't want to buy new. This is exactly what I wanted and I love it. You don't really get the 'scale' of everything from the pictures, but the desk is 53" wide and the wall cabinet is 48". I can't wait to load it up with books, baskets and all the boxes of STUFF I have scattered all over the house.

This lovely, well-cared for piece

turned into this after sanding/priming/painting/poly. I paid $6 for this chair at Habitat for Humanity's ReStore. Hee hee!


I think we spent maybe $325 total for everything, and I sold the table and chairs that used to sit under that light fixture for $300 on Craig's List. Not too shabby when my whim of an idea only cost a net of $25 plus some labor on both our parts. Matt had all the construction done within a weekend, and the painting went a lot faster than I expected - maybe a week, start to finish. The worst part was the chair. I think I hate that chair. That chair is why the stools are not white yet. I had to move on and get to the other desk (as of today wearing a fresh coat of grey primer) and two chairs that are still in the garage. Matt would like to get the cars back in it by the end of the weekend :)