Craft Room/Wrapping Closet Layout

Happy Friday everyone! I hope that you had a great week and have a fun weekend in store. We have a crazy one ahead of us with lots of Mardis Gras festivities. It will be busy, but a lot of fun! And I have to say, I am still super excited about getting the drywall up at the house and our doors.  Can't think of a better way to kick-off the weekend than that!

So a few weeks ago I told y'all about the unplanned closet that Matt and I got upstairs because of some A/C reworking.  And I don't know about you, but to me, getting an extra closet is like finding a pot of gold!  As I mentioned, my first thought was to create a craft room/wrapping closet to wrangle all of my crafting and wrapping goodies.  Well, unfortunately my super master plan all came to a screeching halt when Matt said that he thinks that we will need the extra closet to store random stuff that won't go anywhere else in the house. So that means, the only way I am going to get my craft room/wrapping closet is to get rid of some serious stuff around the casa.  For those of you who don't know me, I have a tendency to hoard keep random stuff around and never throw anything away...and it drives Matt crazy.  To actually get rid of enough stuff to be able to have an entire closet empty, is going to be a serious challenge for me!  But I want that wrapping closet, so somehow, someway, I am going to make this happen.  And to that I have to say "Well played Mattey, well played." 

 

So now onto the layout. The closet is a small walk-in and is 5 feet wide by 4 feet deep. Since it is a little small, I want to put all the storage on the back wall of the closet.  Here are a couple of my original inspiration pictures:

 

 

 

Aren't those spaces absolutely fabulous?!?!?!?! They make me smile every time I see them with all the bright colors and pretty cabinets.  Those rooms are obviously much larger than the space that I have; however, they give a great starting point to get the creative juices flowing.  I absolutely love the wrapping paper/ribbon holders in those photos.  And I think the baskets are a great way to add in some texture.  I also like the idea of having lots of drawers to store tissue paper, boxes, tags, scissors, etc. on the bottom of the closet. As I mentioned before, I think that Martha Stewart's flat filing cabinet will do just the trick. Here is what she looks like:
 

Once I figured out the basic elements that I want in the closet, I busted out my handy dandy graph paper and came up with this layout:

As you can see, I took the ideas from those absolutely fabulous inspiration rooms and tried to make them fit my space.  In the middle of the closet, I will put the Martha Stewart flat filing cabinet.  I have about six inches on either side of the cabinet, so thought this would be a great space to add some tiny shelves to store seasonal wrapping paper that I can display up top when its the right time of the year.  Above the flat filing cabinet, I plan to add a some dowels so that I can hang all of my ribbon.  The Martha Stewart flat filing cabinet is pretty deep, so I should still have plenty of room on top for a good work space.  Above the ribbon, I plan on putting some more dowels for my wrapping paper.  On either side of the wrapping paper, I will have open shelves where I can add some pretty baskets for all of my crafting goodies.  I also want to add a fold-out table on the closet door so that I can have an extra worktop for wrapping large presents.  This is what I have in mind:

 

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I found this sweet one online that looks fun and has additional storage behind the table:

 

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However, the whole contraption will have to be fairly light since it will hang on the door instead of a wall.  So I think that we will probably have to build it ourselves, which should be fun!  So that is all for now.  I hope you have a great weekend and thanks for stopping by!!!

Houston We Have Drywall (& a LaCantina Door)!

Hello everyone!  I hope that you have all been fantastic over the past few weeks.  Sorry about being awol for so long, but Matt and I were in Florence for a week for his work's annual meeting and then I have been going 150% at my job since getting back with a big project that has a tight deadline.  However, I had to share with you the exciting progress happening at the house.  The two biggest things are that we now have drywall and exterior doors! Holla!!!!  So let's take a tour of the casa to see how she looks with walls and doors shall we?

 

First I have to show you the super cool La Cantina door that we added that I first talked about here.  This door separates the living room from the back of the house and looks like a wall of french doors.

 

 

 

However, with the flick of a few locks and tiny bit of pushing....the doors completely fold-up to bring the outside in. Can I getta "TAH-DAD"?!?!?!

I am here to tell you that these bad boys are AWESOME!!! I love them because they literally double the size of the our living room when they are open. We are going to have some serious entertaining happening with these guys during the 8 months out of the year that we have good weather in Houston.  Here is a video of them in action. My commentary does not do justice my super cool happy dance that was happening behind the camera.

 

So now that you have seen the doors in action, I want to take you on a tour of the house with drywall.  Here is the floor plan of the downstairs, so that you can see the placement of the rooms.

 

 



Here is the view into the living room from the back patio.  The wine room is on the right under the stairs, the dining room is on the left of the door, and the entrance to the kitchen is in the left corner of the picture.

This is a view standing with my back to the wine room and looking towards the backyard.  Please excuse the disastrous landscaping (or complete lack there of) because all that will be addressed once we get finished with the remodel.

 

This picture is taken from the middle of the living room so that you can see the dining room.  It is crazy how much bigger everything looks in person once dry wall is up!  I guess it is difficult to judge the size of a room when you only have the studs.  You can also see our front door.  It is all wrapped up for safe keeping...but when the plastic is gone, it is beautiful.  As you can see, it is a similar style to a lot of the door I liked here. I love all the natural light that the windows and sidelights bring into the house.  And it will be even brighter once the protective film is removed from the windows.  Oh I can't wait!!!

 

This next picture shows our master bedroom.  It was a little difficult to photograph with my Canon Elf, but at least you can get a general idea of the room's shape.

 

 

Now onto the master bathroom (A.K.A. Jenn's happy place).  This is a view into the master bath from the master bedroom.  Here you can see the closet is in the back and the walk-in shower on the right. The tub will live to the right of the shower and our vanities will live on the left wall opposite of the shower.

 

This is a picture of the inside of the master closet.  You can't tell much from the photo, but it is 13' long by 10' wide.  I will show you my master plan for the master closet in a later post.

Here is another view of the back wall of the master bathroom. As you can see, the shower will be on the left side of the wall and the claw foot tub will be on the right under the window. We have his and her shower heads and body sprays, along with a rain shower overhead.  Matt gave me so much flack about having a "his-and-her" shower...but I think he will love it once it is all said and done.

Here is a close-up of the shower layout.  Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!!!  This makes me giddy like a school girl!

This is a close-up of the wine room under the stairs.  We are going to have wine shelves in the recessed space on the right and on the back wall. I will show all the details in a later post.

Now we are going to head upstairs.  Here is the floor plan for the second floor so that you can get your bearings.

 



The first thing you see when you head up the stairs is the study.  We will have built-in cabinets and a desk along the back wall.

Next we head into the revised game room.  It's amazing how far it has come since we blew out the front wall.  This is a view from the back corner of the room looking towards the study, which you can see through the door.

Here is another view of the game room from the front side of the house.  We are going to add a built-in bar in the nook on the left.  And through the door, you can see the entrance to the laundry room.  I showed you some of my ideas for the laundry room here.

This is a view of the hallway leading to the back of the house.  To my left is the study and to my right are the stairs, game room and laundry room.  As you walk down the hall, the first door on the left is the entrance to the guest bathroom, the first door on the right is my wrapping room (which is not labeled in this picture), the second door on the right is Bedroom 3 (A.K.A. the "Blue Room"), and the final door in the middle is the entrance to the new bedroom above our master (Bedroom 4).

Here is a picture of Bedroom 4. It is directly above our master bedroom, so is basically identical.

 

 

When you turn around and leave Bedroom 4, you are back in the hall heading towards the study and Bedroom 2 (A.K.A. the "Teepee Room"). As you head down the hall, the first door to my left is the entrance to the Blue Room (which you can't see in this photo) and the second door to the left is my wrapping closet.  I talked about my initial plans for the layout of the wrapping closet here and here.  The first door on the right is the guest bathroom, followed by the study and the Teepee Room.

 

 

Here is a pitiful little picture of part of the guest bathroom. We will have two vanities on either side of the window and to the right are the shower and toilette. I need to invest in a super wide lens so that I can get better pictures for everyone!

 

 

After you exit the guest bathroom and enter the study facing the Teepee Room, this is the view you will see.  To my left are the stairs and to my right is the study.  Directly in front of me is the entrance to the Teepee Room.  Two closets flank the entry into the Teepee Room.

Here is what the Teepee Room loooks like on the inside.  It is a long (23') and narrow (11') room with an arched roof.  This will likely become our kiddo's game room with all sorts of fun murals.  It just feels like a place you want to play when you go in.  I also added built-in storage into the eaves...cause hey, if there is a possible open space, I will use it!  Our builder makes so much fun of me for that - but trust me, we will love all the additional storage at some point down the road, I just know it!  We will have doors on the front of the opening that will look like wainscoting so they won't be so obtrusive. 

  

So that finishes up the tour of the casa with dry wall.  Also, thank you so much for stopping by, I hope that you liked seeing the progress!  Have a wonderful day!!!

It’s a Wrap...Getting Crafty In My New Craft Room‼!

The renovations are still progressing at the house; however, we have been working on all the "behind the scenes" projects over the past 4 weeks (i.e. electrical, plumbing, HVAC, etc.), so there hasn't been very much visible transformations at the house like there was when we were doing demo and moving walls. Although this work is just as important…it is not nearly as exciting from a blog/picture perspective. However, I just received some of the best news that a girl can ever receive…I'M GETTING A WHOLE NEW CLOSET that was not originally called for in the plans‼‼‼‼‼! Que Jessee Spano – "I'm so excited! I'm so excited! I'm so, I'm so, I'm so (NOT) scared Zach!"

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Please tell me you remember that epic moment from Saved By the Bell!  The new closet actually came about because of unplanned changes we have to make to the HVAC system. About a year ago, we had to replace our old air conditioner after it kicked the bucket, so we planned on keeping it even with the renovations because it was effectively brand new AC unit. However, with the additional square footage that we are adding to the house (i.e. the new bedroom, game room extension and dining room extension), our air conditioner unit is not large enough to service the whole house and we have to add another unit (one to service the upstairs and one to service the down stairs). No biggie right? WRONG‼! I have now learned that there are two rules with air conditioners: (1) air conditioners do not work properly if they are too small for the space they are servicing (totally makes sense), and (2) air conditioners do not work properly if they are too large for the space they are servicing (excuse me…come again?!?). Apparently, if an air conditioner unit is too large, it will cool down the space too quickly. This is a problem because the air conditioner will only run for a few a minutes and will not have time to properly circulate the air. In Houston, that means that the humidity will never be circulated out of the house which can lead to mold problems. ICK‼! So, long story longer, we are having to replace our current AC unit with a new smaller unit. It's frustrating…but every cloud has a silver lining right? So here is where the new closet comes in. Our HVAC system used to be the attic space above our bedroom, which is outlined in red below.

Since we have turned the attic space into the new fourth bedroom, we originally planned to keep the HVAC system where it was and just build a closet around it. You can see the HVAC closet below in red:

Well, now that we are adding in all new HVAC system, the AC man has moved the entire HVAC unit from the second floor into the attic…which means new closet for me‼‼ Woohoo! Once I found out about this new little slice of heaven, I immediately thought – Craft Room / Wrapping Room! The space is approximately 5 feet wide by 4 feet deep. I have been searching the internet for inspiration and just discovered the Martha Stewart Craft Furniture at Home Depot. OMG, the stuff is awesome‼! How I didn't know that she had an entire line of craft room furniture before this is beyond me. I love all the pieces in the collection, especially the 8 drawer flat filing cabinet:

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LOVE!!! This will fit perfectly in the closet and will be a great place to store all my tissue paper, boxes, tags, etc.  I think that it will also give me some space on either side of the filing cabinet for some baby shelves.  I also want to add some cool wrapping paper storage above the filing desk as well as some large shelves to provide a home where my crafting goodies can live.  I think this will help with overall organization, since the closet is such a small space. Here are some pictures of some super cool craft rooms and wrapping rooms that have inspired me.

 



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This little space is obviously a "work in imagination" for me…but I will keep you posted once I get a layout drawn up and have my color scheme in place. How about y'all…do you have a great craft room ideas or storage suggestions?  Please feel free to share them (or a link) in the comments below, because I would love to see your ideas!  Thanks for stopping by and I hope that you have a wonderful day‼!