The craft room!

Here it is!  When Eric and I moved in, I really had no idea what to turn the orange room into.  For a while it was storage.  But when the snowpocalypse happened last February and we were all snowed in, I decided to use the time to clean the room up.  It then became the craft room.  It was still called the orange room because it really didn't look crafty or a place to create.  It was still a dark and orange room.

Here is a shot of the room when we moved in:

Doesn't it look amazing?  Yea... we weren't sure what to do with it either.

Here is what the room ended up looking like:

Nice new craft table to the left, somewhat organized shelves crammed together in the back, to the back right is junk not organized, and then to the right is the futon that felt out of place...  and the orange carpet just glares at you!  So do the wood panel walls too... yuck.

This was the awesome lighting we had too - anything on the craft table was hard to see because there was no light!  There were only a couple lights and they didn't even fill the whole ceiling tile spot:

So, one Sunday afternoon, we began the project!  And the orange carpet came up!

It was a long debate what ceiling to do, paint the existing, buy new, or keep what was there...  We ended up taking the ceiling down and deciding at the last step.  Here is the room with no more orange carpet and a coat of primer on!

Then came the paint dilemma... 

I wanted gray, I knew in my mind what I wanted, but when I got to the store, I panicked!  There are SO many grays in every shade of color!  I thought I had found the right color, I even started painting and thought I liked it, but as it started drying it looked too blue.  A very pretty color, but not the gray I wanted for the clean and crisp craft room.  So back to the paint store we went.  (That is such an awful feeling!)  But I found a MUCH better gray and as you can see below, it was actually GRAY!

The wall to the left is the blue gray and the wall to the right is the gray I wanted.  Phew.  And yes, we painted over the blue gray.  The room REALLY started to come together with the gray walls.  The room was already looking brighter!

So then we decided on the ceiling.  And we went with buying new tiles but painted the existing metal grid.  It really worked out nicely, however it was like a puzzle putting them in and cutting them.  The rafters above the ceiling didn't give you much room to push the tiles up and get them into the ceiling.  Another challenging part of the room.   

Side note - all the stuff from the craft/junk/orange room sat in our living room for about three weeks.  We joked we were on hoarders.  It really was not fun (for me - Erica).  The last few days of construction were driving me NUTS!  I hated seeing the room like this!

Slowly, the room started coming back together!  I LOVED the white trim with the gray walls.  JUST what I had pictured!

Then came the floor.  We picked a laminate flooring and Eric installed it himself!  It had some challenges as well, but it looks wonderful!

Eric also got the idea for some track lighting above the crafting desk.  It looks pretty sharp too :)

THEN IT WAS ALL DONE!!!!  So before we show the big reveal... here is before:

and AFTER!!!!!!

Hard to believe its the same room huh?  I still have decorations to work on but it is done!!!

It is usable, inspiring, and already being used for crafts and wedding invitations!!!!

So there you have it, our orange craft room is complete!!!

E & E