I have been planning to redesign my office/studio for the last year or so. In a year, I have seen so many pictures of craft room decorating ideas, furniture and storage products, that I am a little overwhelmed by it. I have seen thousands of products and storage systems and I have not one, but two Pinterest boards with lots of “pinspiration” {is that a word?, it is now! } and they have been of great help. The time has come and we are { that’s hubby and me } going to tackle this mess during the next two week s and hopefully {fingers crossed} it will be done very, very soon.

Our home office is located on the second floor, in a room that I would call it a hybrid between a den and a loft… Some people call it a den, some call it the loft. The bottom line here is:  there’s no doorway, it’s all open. If you have a mess {like I do 90% of the time}, everyone will see it and you can’t say:  ‘I will just shut the door’. No.

To my advantage, this room is located at the end of the hallway and no one has to go past it to go to another room. If you go in that direction, you’re going to the office.

I have been dreading the fact that, in order to be able to share “the big reveal’ with you, I have to share the “the big mess” first. But it’s ok, I will get over it. You will too, I promise.

Here is a picture of the room as you walk in.

To the left is the railing, open to the 12 ft high ceiling living room. Beautiful, yes. Scary when you have a toddler at home. I have to keep my Making Memories Desktop Carousel on top of the hutch {upper left corner} to keep all the tools away from my toddler’s little fingers.

To the right, there’s a sliding door that leads to a small deck, and this is the best part of having the office located in this loft. This is my view every morning when I ‘come to work’.

And this is the view every afternoon…

Even though this is extremely nice, I only have two walls – one across from the other – to work with and that interferes with my craft room layout ideas. It would have been easier to design the layout in a room with two walls converging in a 90-degree angle.

This is the other wall, across the hutch. Yikes! This is the part I dread the most about sharing…

We bought this armoire five years ago, we scored it at a Rooms To Go Outlet. It was a floor sample, so we paid half the price {$480.00 if I remember correctly}. At the time I was only scrapbooking, and my collection of embellishments, stickers, glitter, embossing powder, and tools was growing rapidly.

Those little drawers were perfect to stash them away while the bigger drawers held loose cardstock and paper pads. Behind the doors there are two shelves, it was the perfect storage for magazines, books, and albums. The 4 bottom drawers stored my son’s toys for the last 2 years…and that’s why they are all crooked and falling off. They don’t close properly anymore. My son has been pulling those drawers daily for the last 14 months.

To the left is my massive laser printer sitting on a black filing cabinet (that came from our old business office). My husband built a custom wood top for the cabinet, that’s how big the printer is. I don’t like this set-up at all, I am thinking I want to spray paint the cabinet white to match all the new furnishings.

To the right, there’s a storage ottoman I found at Home Goods. It was one of those impulsive purchases. I love it but it’s big and I am having a hard time finding a place for it {can you tell?}. That frame that you see to the right, is my BS diploma. It looks misplaced, I know. I had to move it over when I started stashing things on top of the armoire. As I said, this is a project in the making for the last year. I am delighted that it’s actually happening this weekend!

Here is the desk. My one and only working surface area.

Not having enough surface to work on, triggered the idea of re-designing the studio. When my Etsy sales spiked last year around this time, I had to work on 5 or 6 parties at a time and this desk looked like a bomb went off.

I bought several Iris Project Cases and stored each party project separately. It works like a charm, but I still need the surface to spread my tools. See that canvas, and the wooden words ‘Dream’ and ‘Imagine’ on the desk? It’s a project I am working on to decorate the studio. I am excited!

This office may look empty now but it is only because I have moved out 90% of my tools and supplies to another room so we can start moving furniture out. Before these pictures were taken, this room was ‘chaos’. I could not share the chaos.

We will be working on the big project this current week and hopefully, we will have everything done by the weekend. So, stay tuned and come back to check my “Craft Room Design – The Big Reveal “ post.

Just one hint: I am painting the room “Banana Cream Pie” by Glidden (found at Home Depot) and all the furniture is white. Yay! for a fresh and airy craft room!

Thanks for looking!