Hello everyone!
As promised, I will share pictures and tell you how this came about.
When we bought this house we knew that my craft room was going to be my craft room. In our previous home, I had my stuff in a closet in what had been my mom's room. I would carry the stuff out to the kitchen to work. Not exactly user friendly!
With my craft room in this house, it has always been just my craft room. Never combined with the office or a guest bedroom. Yes, I am very lucky. When you purchase a brand new home, there are many expenses that you don't think of, like landscaping, window treatments, 13 ceiling fans (hey, this IS the desert!!) and on and on. Expenses pile up. When we were deciding on the cabinetry for my craft room, Ed talked me out of the drawers I wanted in favor of cheaper cabinets. I have made them work for over 10 years. Now that I have so much more stuff, as well as my business, I knew I needed to fix the storing and organization of my stuff or go crazy!
Then there was the email. I subscribe to many blogs. One blog is by a lady I have long admired, Jennifer McGuire. She recently moved and was showing her new studio on her blog. My friend Pam and I oohed and aahed over it! It was the stuff of dreams!
We were riding together in the car with Pam, and we were talking about it. I showed Ed a photo of Jennifer McGuire's craft palace. Later, he said, we could possibly add drawers. We can go to IKEA and see about it. I am pretty sure we went the very next day!
Since the cabinets that were in the craft room were from IKEA, Ed believed that they would be easy to retro-fit. I believe that we bought two base drawer units that day.
The next day Ed put the drawer units together in the garage and went to install them after he was done. I had moved out of the craft room and into the kitchen breakfast nook. I heard much noise; tools whirring and a few phrases like "Son of a Bluebird" and "Mother Finches"! (language has been changed to protect the innocent!)
Turns out, two years ago IKEA switched to American made products in this country and went from metric to our standard. Everything was off by and eighth of an inch or more... whatever metric is off by. We did not know this at the time, Ed just believed that he got one cabinet that was off. So, my sweet Ed was going to re-drill the holes, but then found that the other cabinet was off as well. Back to IKEA he went. This time he got a salesperson who understood what retro-fit meant and the guy said, "oh man, how long ago did you buy the cabinets??". That was when Ed learned that they had changed! I'm glad that the products are American made. I just wish the first kid that helped us would have known what the word retro-fit meant and he could have saved us a bit of pain. This meant that we could NOT retro-fit anything, but instead had to redo everything! YIKES! What we thought was going to be a weekend project, has turned into a week long (or more) and much more expensive project. However now I have the craft room of my dreams!
And, if you have stayed with me this long, you now get to see the photos!! :) First some before photos for those of you who never saw the room before!
Things were starting to get messy...and I realized that I didn't have any before pictures!
Here you can see one of the base cabinets going in...another snag, they didn't have the color we had before, so we were going to have to change that too. I picked white.
I had a key hole for a sewing machine, that I never used, which you can see next to the new drawers. It was my mom's sewing machine, and it is from the eighties. It is mostly made from metal, and they just don't make them like that anymore. I have kept it, but I hate sewing. Kinda silly for it to use up so much valuable real estate. I do have another sewing machine that I bought two years ago, that I have never used either....seems to be a trend. Someday, I just know I will use it on a card!!
Here is a shot of the office. Stuff from the craft room was all over the house! The wood crates were my brother's. He had them in Illinois. He stored his record albums in them. They are actually from a farm in Arizona! He passed away, in 1978, before we moved to Arizona in 1980.
Removing the doors, ready to install drawers in the retro-fit stage.
This is when he realized that he would have to drill 8 new holes per cabinet for the new doors to work! ALL of the old cabinets came out and went into the garage.
New upper cabinets were installed first. Many trips to IKEA were made! It is about 23 miles one way.
Here you can see the hang rail for the bases has been added.
Base drawers installed! Product in some already! LED spot lights added to the underside of the upper cabinets. One is hanging, waiting to be installed.
Upper and lower cabinets...it is coming together!
Filled drawers waiting to be installed!
All of the base drawers in place!
So many drawers!
Are you ready to see the finished room??!!
I had one DVD tower to hold my stamps. Now I have three of them with room for two more!! Behind the door are paper punches.
See the cabinet on the bottom right?? That one has my TWO sewing machines, foot pedals and all of my sewing supplies...in ONE place!! This makes my organized heart very happy.
I have always been a fan of Mary Engelbreit. I used to sell many of her products in my shop. I have some very precious things from those days. The welcome rug above the top cabinets is from my dear cousin. And all the knobs are ME too!
The Mary Engelbreit print above the cabinets is signed.
Here is my adhesive drawer!
These acrylic blocks are used to hold unmounted stamps when we use them. The cases are filled too. I need so many because of the classes I teach. Most classes I have 8 to12 people in one class. We use multiple stamps!
This is one drawer of Sizzix brand products. Whenever I have a precise die cut on a card, chances are that these machines have been used to create it. These are the old style dies (red, green and yellow colored pieces) I just can't get rid of them!
This is another Sizzix drawer. 
This bookcase was added to hold more DVD stamp sets, but it is deeper than the DVD towers and therefore wasted space. Instead I put my cut cardstock in it, by color family. The company I work for, Stampin' Up!, has always had color families; regals, subtles, brights, neutrals, and what they call in colors, which change yearly.
I had the storage cabinet beside the new bookcase. Actually I have two of them. The other set is in the closet. They are drawer cabinets stacked one on top of the other. There are wheels on the cabinets, but the top cabinet does not have the wheels. Once filled, these do not move easily, because they are not meant to be stacked like this. These hold wood mounted stamps. They are divided by category. The boxes on top are for an upcoming class!
The quilt, that you see just a part of, was done by my very dear friend Susan. She had it in her craft room for several years and decided to change the look of her room and asked me if I would like it! I LOVE it and am extremely proud to have it hanging in my room! It features 9 panels of cats!!
A close up! Isn't it darling??!! I really do love it. How can you not be happy looking at it?? Such vibrant colors.
Envelope and paper cabinet!
Ribbon drawer!!!! (swoon!)
I will have more photos as I get better organized. This blog is way too long already! Thanks for sticking with me!!
Take good care~
