I was beyond touched when my Mom asked me if I would makeover her craft/sewing/ironing/wrapping/decor storage {from here on out I will just call it her “workroom”, as she does!} room for a birthday present this year.
Here is the before…
The room, which is in their basement, was finished by the previous owners into an exercise room, which will explain the huge mirror on one wall. Its a nice size room, and how nice is it that she has a space that can be dedicated to these type of pursuits.
My challenge was the kind of thing I love, to figure out how to store all these assorted items, create a space for her to sew, wrap gifts and iron, plus of course, make the room beautiful so she would enjoy spending time in there.
{I should disclaim that the rest of my parents home is perfectly clean, organized and decorated. This is the basement space in the home where things that didn’t belong in the other perfectly clean and organized spaces just accumulated!}
I had visions of being a little further along with this project by the end of this week, but all in all, we came pretty far considering I had three kids in tow that required their fill of pool time and summer fun, I battled a virus, and we started from complete scratch in the room on Monday morning.
First off Monday morning, we went out to pick paint. We already knew our color scheme (she wanted pale green and rose pink). Because the room has no windows (part of the reason that we left the mirror on the wall to reflect light, the other reason would be the drywall damage that would ensue from taking it down), I went straight to a Benjamin Moore Natura paint, which they promise is almost odorless. While it was expensive, it was amazing in its coverage, and truly had hardly any paint odor.
My Mom selected Apple Blossom as the color.
Next we went fabric shopping, unfortunately to no avail due to the small fabric selection in her area, so we came home and ordered fabric online. My plan is to head home and work on the fabric accents and bring them back in another week or so and hopefully finish the room up.
Finally, sweet Terry tagged along with me to IKEA and we came home with all this (and much more not shown) to tackle storage issues in the room.
Today, Terry and I knocked out assembling the Billy bookcases, and went over final plans and storage strategies for the room.
She also came up with the brilliant plan to use this table (which had just been sitting right outside the room being used for another purpose) instead of having to create a new built-in work table for the alcove.
So, we have to head back home (across the state) this weekend but I will be back to finish this room up, hopefully in the next week or two. Its hard to leave it half done, but my Mom is being patient and in the end, I am hopeful the result will be worth it.
Here is the current to-do List:
- Paint new worktable white
- Decorative finish on the wall behind the bookcases
- Hang chandelier
- Paint her sewing cabinet, and makeover chair
- Make the fabric accents
- Miscellaneous items {since my mom reads our blog, everything else falls under this category so I can keep a few things I have planned for her a surprise}
Thanks for stopping by!
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