My daughter, Rhiannon, just turned 16. She wanted lots of things for her birthday, and she didn't really figure on getting many or any since her birthday is usually when we've run into financial trouble after spending too much at the end of Spring/School. This year it was the wedding. But I was determined my girl was going to have a good Sweet Sixteen. We got her a netbook, minutes on her phone (which she'd been without for over a month), then headed to Michaels and used four 50% off One Item coupons (Yay for having a bunch of people going places with you, i.e. kids.) and got her the clay/pasta roller she'd been asking for forever, some transluscent clay, liquid clay, an extruder and a plastic carrying case for it and its pieces (It's like an icing piping gun but for clay). Then she had to rush off to her granparents's house to work for them for a few days to earn some money.
While she was gone, I headed to Lowes and bought a long 12" wide particle board. I can't recall now how long it was, but it was just $5, and the guy cut it for free into 4 pieces. I grabbed 6 cheap shelf brackets at $1.50 each. I also got one of those cute Valspar paint samples for $2.50.
In fact I believe the one I got is that yellowish one in front. I also got a flat sheet of the metal that builders make heating ducts out of, that galvanized stuff. It was about $6. Luckily magnets stick to it!
So, I headed home and painted all the shelves, attached the brackets, then got my husband to install them. I would, and could, but he was there, so whynot! Hah. I also cut the sheet of metal into the size I wanted and had him screw that to the wall. Then I proceeded to try to sort of arrange her craft stuff. The child is so artistic and SO GOOD at it! But she got a ton of stuff and is a beginner hoarder. She wants to be an engineer, so hopefully some day she'll have the money to have a nice home with a huge craft room. But for now she has this space...
It's kind of blurry because she was standing on her bed taking it haha. Anyway, it's not much and it's not the prettiest craft area on the internet, but she loves it, and has started making a ton of new things.
The top has her shell collection she loves and didn't have a place for. Now they're sort of out of the way but visible. Also, her wool for felting and some yarn. The little squid/jellyfish thing hanging there is one of the first things she made when she got into clay. I think it's adorable. Each tentacle is a spiral.
Then the second shelf has her watercolors and pastels, pen/pencil holders, her clay containers and extruder kit, some ribbon and the beginning of a horse she's been working on in wire and clay. She's not happy with it so far, but I kind of think it looks cool as is. I'm just weird.
Sorry this is blurry, but this is the metal piece we put up. Those round magnets can hold many charms and things which she can take to school and attach this to the inside of her locker door and sell them from her locker to other students.
That's her paint and assorted stuff area. The table is actually the little octagonal table that used to be in Zoe's room for tea parties with her babydolls, but she stopped using it at all, so it moved in here. Anyway, due to the fact that it has no real corners, there was a hole in the corner, which created wastred space and stuff would fall down it. So the 4th piece of the particle board that was left over when I had it cut, fit perfectly over the hole and was big and sturdy enough not to wobble.
For the other corner, she put her hefty highschool yearbook and topped it with her task light (which oddly has no lightbulb at the moment).
So, yeah nothing fancy, but she loves it and gave me such a big hug when she got home. She has another table in there which I originally figured would be her craft area, but she's been using it more for a vanity space and just collecting junk. So I got her a pretty mirror for it and moved one of the small lamps in there for more light, and arranged her makeup and stuff as nice as I could. It really just looks cluttered. I'm on the lookout for a better looking storage solution. It'll be where she does her homework too, so hopefully without the crafts there, she'll keep it more cleaned off (I hope).
If I find a cute storage thing and if we change out the pink and black fabrics for the Paris linen stuff and redo it all, I'll do a post on all that.
Now, I mentioned in my last post how crazy I must be to think about rearranging my living room AGAIN. Well, it took a LONG time walking around it, talking to myself and measuring EVERYTHING with the tape measure like 5 time each cause I kept forgetting measurements. I think I have them memorized now though! Finally just as I was about to give up, it clicked and I realized the best way to do it, and it all fell into place like a jigsaw.
Tonight when I was snapping photos, I was too tired to clean it up to show all of it haha, so you can see some peeks of some of it.
Here's the before of one corner...
And this is it now...
I wish it were lighter when I take my pics. Can't wait to move to day shift at work. Anyway, I know it's a closer in shot and blurry, but at least you can see the way I moved quite a bit of furniture.
I was nice before and worked for us, but it was getting trashed all the time, and sometimes changing things up makes the kids try to keep it nicer looking longer. It's actually not worked. But I like it. Rhiannon really likes this corner, and I love how it's the first thing your eye goes to when you walk in the front door.
You can see the edge of the dining table there. And here's the other end...
Hah so it was light when I took these pictures. That corner is just always dark. I really like the glow of the lamp though. Rhiannon says it looks like our great room is a library in some big house. Yay! I like that feeling.
So, yeah this is Christopher's chair. He loves it and so it sits at the head of the dining table. That orange chair in the previous photo can actually be scooted up to the other end of the table which is nice for a friend of ours who's on the larger side and doesn't feel comfortable in a dining chair.
Anyway, in this picture, you can see I moved the "dragon table" from the front door area to over here by his chair. It's his collection, and he can use the cleared table space for his accessories when he's running a game for the group on the weekends. That picture on the wall can also come down and we put up a dry erase/magnetic board for tracking the battles in the games. Very convenient.
Still have a lot to do, like finish the vinyl tiles on the living room floor. We'd done them all on the other side of the room since that's where the table was and the couch has hiding the bare plywood on this side. Now that's switched... it's a mess. The chairs get caught on the tiles again and it's ugly. I've got some things on ebay I hope to make enough to buy another box of tiles at least.
Also need to install baseboards and paint the trim white.
For now though the focus is on back to school. The two teenagers are both in highschool this year. A Junior and a Freshman. Zoe's going into 4th grade. She's already upset she won't have an older sister there to hang out with when it's her turn to go.
Oh by the way, if you need to get 1" binders or any spiral bound notebooks, check out Walgreens. Their 1" binders are in awesome colors the girls loved and on sale through July 28 for 99 cents each! And their spiral notebooks, 1, 3 and 5 subject are buy one get one free. Not to mention the 49 cent pack of pens and mechanical pencils etc. I want to head back tomorrow and pick up stuff just to have as extras. The girls always need new everything halfway through the year and they don't go on sale again then.
well, it's after 5am and I've got to get to bed! Y'all have an awesome day. Have fun on one of these last summer weekends. It's hard to believe it's almost over... we didn't do a quarter of the things I'd planned on. Only went to the lake once, and I'd wanted to go every weekend. Oh well. Life happens. See ya!
Patty
While she was gone, I headed to Lowes and bought a long 12" wide particle board. I can't recall now how long it was, but it was just $5, and the guy cut it for free into 4 pieces. I grabbed 6 cheap shelf brackets at $1.50 each. I also got one of those cute Valspar paint samples for $2.50.
So, I headed home and painted all the shelves, attached the brackets, then got my husband to install them. I would, and could, but he was there, so whynot! Hah. I also cut the sheet of metal into the size I wanted and had him screw that to the wall. Then I proceeded to try to sort of arrange her craft stuff. The child is so artistic and SO GOOD at it! But she got a ton of stuff and is a beginner hoarder. She wants to be an engineer, so hopefully some day she'll have the money to have a nice home with a huge craft room. But for now she has this space...
Then the second shelf has her watercolors and pastels, pen/pencil holders, her clay containers and extruder kit, some ribbon and the beginning of a horse she's been working on in wire and clay. She's not happy with it so far, but I kind of think it looks cool as is. I'm just weird.
This shelf is the one right above the work area. I had it cut shorter to fit between the wall and the light switch. There's her pasta roller, a bunch of little containers I got her for her charms she makes which are still all in one container. She has a silicone caulking gun back there and corn starch which is used for the scupting and her glazes etc.
So, yeah nothing fancy, but she loves it and gave me such a big hug when she got home. She has another table in there which I originally figured would be her craft area, but she's been using it more for a vanity space and just collecting junk. So I got her a pretty mirror for it and moved one of the small lamps in there for more light, and arranged her makeup and stuff as nice as I could. It really just looks cluttered. I'm on the lookout for a better looking storage solution. It'll be where she does her homework too, so hopefully without the crafts there, she'll keep it more cleaned off (I hope).
If I find a cute storage thing and if we change out the pink and black fabrics for the Paris linen stuff and redo it all, I'll do a post on all that.
Now, I mentioned in my last post how crazy I must be to think about rearranging my living room AGAIN. Well, it took a LONG time walking around it, talking to myself and measuring EVERYTHING with the tape measure like 5 time each cause I kept forgetting measurements. I think I have them memorized now though! Finally just as I was about to give up, it clicked and I realized the best way to do it, and it all fell into place like a jigsaw.
Tonight when I was snapping photos, I was too tired to clean it up to show all of it haha, so you can see some peeks of some of it.
Here's the before of one corner...
And this is it now...
I was nice before and worked for us, but it was getting trashed all the time, and sometimes changing things up makes the kids try to keep it nicer looking longer. It's actually not worked. But I like it. Rhiannon really likes this corner, and I love how it's the first thing your eye goes to when you walk in the front door.
You can see the edge of the dining table there. And here's the other end...
So, yeah this is Christopher's chair. He loves it and so it sits at the head of the dining table. That orange chair in the previous photo can actually be scooted up to the other end of the table which is nice for a friend of ours who's on the larger side and doesn't feel comfortable in a dining chair.
Anyway, in this picture, you can see I moved the "dragon table" from the front door area to over here by his chair. It's his collection, and he can use the cleared table space for his accessories when he's running a game for the group on the weekends. That picture on the wall can also come down and we put up a dry erase/magnetic board for tracking the battles in the games. Very convenient.
Still have a lot to do, like finish the vinyl tiles on the living room floor. We'd done them all on the other side of the room since that's where the table was and the couch has hiding the bare plywood on this side. Now that's switched... it's a mess. The chairs get caught on the tiles again and it's ugly. I've got some things on ebay I hope to make enough to buy another box of tiles at least.
Also need to install baseboards and paint the trim white.
For now though the focus is on back to school. The two teenagers are both in highschool this year. A Junior and a Freshman. Zoe's going into 4th grade. She's already upset she won't have an older sister there to hang out with when it's her turn to go.
Oh by the way, if you need to get 1" binders or any spiral bound notebooks, check out Walgreens. Their 1" binders are in awesome colors the girls loved and on sale through July 28 for 99 cents each! And their spiral notebooks, 1, 3 and 5 subject are buy one get one free. Not to mention the 49 cent pack of pens and mechanical pencils etc. I want to head back tomorrow and pick up stuff just to have as extras. The girls always need new everything halfway through the year and they don't go on sale again then.
well, it's after 5am and I've got to get to bed! Y'all have an awesome day. Have fun on one of these last summer weekends. It's hard to believe it's almost over... we didn't do a quarter of the things I'd planned on. Only went to the lake once, and I'd wanted to go every weekend. Oh well. Life happens. See ya!
Patty