November 12, 2015  

Take the tour: Craft studio makeover reveal

Home Decor & DIY  

I made it! Today is the official conclusion of the One Room Challenge. Over the past six weeks, I have been one of about 150 crazy bloggers racing to do a complete room makeover in our homes. I chose to transform an empty basement room with ugly red floor into my very own craft studio/office space, and I am thrilled with the results. Now this room has a purpose! It’s my own creative happy place, and I cannot wait to show it to you today.

This is my first time participating in the One Room Challenge, which is hosted by Linda of Calling it Home two times each year. It was a great motivator to keep myself working away each week and also helped me stay focused on one room as opposed to bouncing around from project to project like I tend to do. I have loved decorating my new space, but I’ve enjoyed keeping up on the other room makeovers just as much. Seriously, so many epic room transformations have taken place over the past few weeks. I cannot wait to check out all of the before and afters this weekend!

ORC Guest Blue

If you haven’t been following along with my weekly One Room Challenge updates, you can catch up on my weekly progress updates here:

WEEK ONE // WEEK TWO // WEEK THREE // WEEK FOUR // WEEK FIVE

First, let’s take a good look at the ugly before photo:

 craft room
To help you get your bearings, we have a walkout basement. That door you see opens out into our backyard. I took this photo while standing right by the doorway that leads out of this side room and into the rest of our basement. And on the other side of the door behind me is a few feet of space that includes this wall of shelving.
 craft shelves

Here is the mood board I designed for this space at the beginning of the challenge. My goal was to mix jewel tone accents with lots of white and a punch of black.

What a fun mood board! A neutral craft studio with pops of jewel toned colors
Mood Board Image Sources: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10
And here is the after photo (insert trumpet fanfare):
Great ideas for transforming an old basement into a pretty craft room and office
Here’s a classic before and after photo so you can get the full effect: Craft Reveal Before After
Now, prepare yourself for a ridiculous number of pretty photos. I’m going to keep my comments to a minimum and instead show you around the space. Join me as we take the grand photo tour:
What a pretty desk! I'd love to have that in my office.
Great ideas for transforming an old basement into a pretty craft room and office
Every girl deserves a pretty office space.
There’s so much planning in store for this giant calendar, which is a second-hand find.
Yes! I need a gigantic calendar in my office
What a pretty mint clock!
When dreaming up my plans for this room, a comfy sitting area never made the list. But, when your sister gives you two amazing and cozy gold chairs, what else do you do with them? I love these chairs. My sisters and I found them while thrift shopping years ago and we’ve since passed them back and forth many times.
Add a cozy sitting area to the office
This little gallery wall is sure to grow and morph over time. I started with one wire, leaving room to add another underneath it in the future. This is a great place to display inspirational quotes, artwork, and other pretty goodness.
Can't use nails? String wire between a couple command hooks and you have an instant gallery wall
Can't use nails? String wire between a couple command hooks and you have an instant gallery wall
I’m very excited for the future brainstorm sessions that will take place on this idea wall, which is a roll of white paper hanging from the ceiling. That way, when I’m done with this brainstorm I can cut it off and unroll some fresh paper.
Awesome idea! Add a giant idea wall in the office or craft room
Craft Studio Final 174

Next up is the shelving area. This is where many of my craft supplies are now stored. There is also a whole wall of shelving behind that blue curtain.

This shelf is so organized with all the color coordinated boxes and baskets
Craft Studio Curtain
I will admit that I had every intention of designing super cute labels for all of these boxes and baskets. However, it was down to crunch time and I made myself take a few things off the list. So labeling will have to wait for another day. Until then, at least everything is in pretty storage containers (my guilty pleasure!).

This shelf is so organized with all the color coordinated boxes and baskets

Fun way to display crayons in a glass jar
Organize wrapping paper and vinyl in a pretty basket
Now let’s move on to the big work table in the center of the room:
This is a cute way to organize craft supplies so they're at your fingertips
My giant white tablecloth looks a bit wrinkly, but that’s the best I could get it ironed. It’s actually a cheap plastic shower curtain liner. How nifty is that? My table happened to be the perfect size for a standard shower curtain. It’s perfect for cleaning up messes of paint and glitter, and it’s so cheap that I don’t care if I ruin it (like when I melted a hole in it while ironing curtains – oops). I jazzed it up with a couple rows of black vinyl triangles.
Genius idea for a craft room tablecloth!
Refinish thrifted chairs with a bit of paint and TLC
I had planned to paint four chairs (yet another thrift store find), but only got two done in time for this post. I ultimately decided to spend my time finishing up other components of this room makeover, and then work on the last two chairs later on.
Refinish thrifted chairs with a bit of paint and TLC
Finally, this weird room had a pencil sharpener in it when we bought the house last year. How random is that? I left it where it was, just added a bit of washi tape to liven it up a bit.
Craft Studio Final 132
Although this is the end of the One Room Challenge, I’ll be sharing tutorials from several projects in this room over the next several weeks, so stay tuned!
I am thrilled that I was able to participate in this round of the One Room Challenge, and want to thank Linda from Calling It Home for organizing the challenge. It has been so fun to make over my craft studio, but even more fun to follow the progress of so many of my blogger friends. Today is such an awesome day, because there are so many room reveals to go check out. It’s practically like Christmas! I’m eager to curl up with a cup of hot cocoa and my iPad this weekend so I can tour everyone’s room transformations.
What do you think of my new room? Would working in this space get your creative juices flowing? Want to come over for a crafting night sometime?
Great ideas for transforming an old basement into a pretty craft room and office
 What a beautiful office / craft room!

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  1. Gorgeous! And very inspirational. I love how you decorate with thrift store finds and make it look so professionally done!

  2. Wow! You did such a great job! That’s a dramatic transformation. You made your craft space look so much brighter, and I’m a sucker for jewel tones. So pretty!

  6. Hello Emily!! Just stopping by to let you know that your post has been selected as a Feature over at the Welcome Home Wednesdays Link Party! Come on over and see your link and grab a Featured Button as well!

  7. I love all of the color combinations. I just can’t get over the transformation, to something completely bare bones and hard to imagine what it COULD look like, to this. Job well done, good for you hun. I love it! 🙂

  10. Wow! This space is amazing! There are so many great ideas in here that I absolutely LOVE. The white board calendar, the giant paper roll for ideas, a shower liner for the table cover. Great job! I just love it! I’m pinning this room for sure!

  12. Oh my goodness I love it all! I think my favorite parts are the gallery wall and the washi tape on the pencil sharpener! What a great idea to jazz it up. I’m so glad you kept the pencil sharpener.

    Come do my house next!

  17. I wish you could hear me shrieking right now. You did a fantastic job on your transformation Emily! The colors that you chose are perfect =) I can imagine an epic girl’s night in your new craft room. Fun!

    1. Awww, thank you soooo much Lyn. I’m glad you enjoy the colors. Come to Iowa and we can have a craft night together 🙂

  19. Wow!! You must spend all of your time in this space now. I know I would! Lol. The transformation is beautiful. Love the colours you choose. And the idea board – I need one of those! Hope you get a chance to pop by and see our transformation too 🙂

    1. I have definitely spent a lot more time in this room since making it over. It was ugly and had no purpose before, so it’s nice to be using it now. The idea board is so fun! I love brainstorming on big paper with markers.

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