I am in LOVE with my new room! And I want to share it with you today in my bazillion photos. hehehe I recorded a video tour, too. But it won't be ready until next week. You will love it when you see it!

Some of you may recall from earlier posts, the official room remodel began on December 9th when we pulled up the carpeting. And the finishing touches were done by February 12th. So the "tearing down and putting up" really only took about 2 months! The planning of course took much longer, but I'm so glad I put a lot of thought and designing into it all. It was well worth that time and stress.

The photo above shows my sweet & talented father putting in some finishing touches in early February…my honeycomb blind! It's so nice to be able to shut or adjust this during the day when recording videos. It opens from the bottom AND the top! I ordered this custom blind through JCPenney and was impressed that they were able to cover this 8-foot wide window with just one shade.

It's really a whole different room now. Did you see the before pictures? Click here on my 12/7/16 post to see some photos of what this space used to look like. And I've included more before photos at the bottom of this post. The transformation is incredible!

I'll start at the entrance to the room (shown below) and then move around so you can see how the room is connected and laid out. To see photos of the construction and details about my new pieces, click on these past posts.

• 12/7/15
• 12/22/15
• 12/25/15
• 2/13/16

My room is on a level that is a half-step below our main level. So it's 1/2 below the the ground and 1/2 above. That's why you see stairs coming in, but the room has lots of light from that super wide southeastern facing window.

I love my new clock! I didn't have a clock before and always had to check my computer or phone for the time. It's so nice to just glance at the wall now.

This small quarter circle table was something I had from years ago, and I can't even remember where I got it. But it's the perfect accent table for my plant and is the first thing you see when coming down the stairs into the room. I plan to put a miniature Christmas tree there next December.

And here is the start of my Ikea cabinetry on the "office" side of the room.

Check out my ample storage. This tall unit is 24" deep, 30" wide and 90" tall, and I have a LOT in there including my mailing supplies, customer orders and my personal scrapbooking projects on the bottom shelf. Because you can custom design exactly how you want your Ikea cabinetry (number of shelves, cabinet front style, hardware, closure style, side panels, etc), at times in this post I am only linking you to the area on the website where I shopped. But I chose the Haggeby White and Laxarby Black-brown cabinet fronts & Forbattra and Laxarby side panels. I also chose Faglavik chrome handles and knobs, Laxarby toe kicks, Ekbacken double-sided counter top, and the Omlopp lighting strips for under the wall cabinets.

The lower corner cabinet right next to it is also large and deep and stores ALL of my huge totes, bags and bins. What a godsend!

The wall cabinet above that is where I store my candy that I put out at my events. It's nice to have a shelf just for this. Before my candy had to share space with many other things and it was very hard to deal with the clutter and these treats falling to the floor when setting up for classes.

Here is a fuller look at the office side of my room. Can you see why I am in love with it! 😉

Compare the photo above with this image from when I was planning out my room.

Ikea has a planning program you can use on your computer to help you in designing. I cannot tell you how helpful it was to visualize when planning. You can see your room idea in 3-D or in a grid-paper view.

The majority of the storage units are from Ikea (the Sektion wall-mount and floor cabinets, the Kallax cube storage units and inserts that you will see further down, the countertops, the office chair, and integrated lighting under the wall-mount cabinets.) My dad who has been a builder/handyman his whole life was impressed, too. Directions for assembling things were easy to understand and he loved how everything fit together. And… because we could adjust the height of the floor cabinets by lowering or leaving off the "feet", we were even able to create a 32" high desk area and leave the rest of the countertops at 36".

I went with black and white cabinets, because I wanted some contrast. And in the designing process the all-white look (which was my original plan) just seemed so "washed-out." I love that the black and white together really make my green walls "pop!"

Underneath my office desk area is a mini shelf that my dad constructed with a left-over piece of countertop. Here sits all the cords and doo-dads that should stay hidden anyway.

I love the shelves above my desk, too. This is just a wall cabinet with 3 shelves and no front doors. The second shelf is close to the bottom to create an narrow area to store my printer paper.

The wrought iron brackets are just the accents I needed to frame my work station and give it a more elegant flair. Click here to shop House of Antique Hardware where I purchased them. They have some really pretty pieces.

I realized towards the end of the remodeling that I needed even more decorative accents, so I purchased some leaf clusters, foam and moss from Michael's and put together a couple potted plants with some silver buckets I had sitting around. Click here to see more details about how I decorated the buckets.

To the right of my desk is a shelf in my upper cabinet where I now take photos (day or night!) of my creations that I share on my blog. It's my little light box. Click here to see a couple more photos of this shelf in use.

I have so much storage space in this room that I really could own at least twice as much stuff if I wanted (and if I had any more money left to spend). This is another one of my favorite spots…a cupboard just for past Stampin' Up! catalogs!

I had a custom-created vinyl wall decal made with my company/brand name from Uppercase Living. Terri Law, my consultant was very helpful! I'll be ordering from her again soon.

And in this photo you can also see how my window blind can open from the bottom and/or the top. I LOVE that! It was well worth the extra spending to be able to control the amount of daylight and the direction that light shines in. Daylight is my preference for when I record my videos. And with this blind, I can be sure that I have brightness, but no shadows.

Ta-da! Another fabulous feature in my new room…two large work tables (Linnmon table tops and Gerton legs)! Right now I use the taller one for my video recording area and the smaller one to store projects I am working on. But if I want to have a mini crafting retreat, I can bring them both to the same level and have up to 3 friends join me! Gosh…since I'm behind in my personal scrapbooking, I could have that lower table assigned for just that task now. I'd get caught up if everything was out and I could do a layout each week. Right? 😉

New lighting! (This room desperately needed that.)

My dad installed this large area of track lighting right that we found at Menards in the middle of the room, and I cannot tell you how much of a difference that has made. Another bonus with this system is that if I want less light, I can either take a couple of the pendants off the track or I can dim them. Yep! My dad is so wonderful he even connected a dimmer switch to my ceiling lights. And if I want more light (don't know why I'd need that, though), I can add more pendants to the track.

Here is the spot where I spend most of my creative time. I love this nook! Every ink pad, embellishment, tool, sheet of paper or cardstock, etc. is right at my fingertips. No more walking across the room to get this or that. I can't even tell you how happy this makes me.

The upper wall corner cabinet is just for displaying some décor pieces. So I omitted purchasing a cabinet door for this one, too.

And the one next to it holds mostly memory keeping products: mainly page protectors and Project Life card and accessory packs.

Below that are my treasured Stamp-N-Storage units!! (Happy dance!) Because my room is half underground and half above, there is a ledge that separates the two sections of the wall. I didn't use it much before the remodel and felt like it was in the way. But look how perfect it is for these units.

Do you want to see what I have in my drawers below? The top drawers hold my grid paper, embellishments (washi tape, items in containers and those that I grab for first such like my rhinestones), and sponges and daubers on the far right.

Just below my middle top drawer is another narrow one where I keep more of my accessories.

The drawers below those hold my Stampin' Trimmers & blades, my punch boards, and my glitters, embossing powers, heat tool and spritzers.

And in the bottom drawers I added hanging file folder frames from Office Max – two letter size ones for my 8-1/2" x 11" cardstock and one legal size one for my 12" wide designer and specialty papers.

As we span further around the room, you can now see my fabulous Kallax piece. It's made up of two shelving units: one that is almost 58" tall and one on top that gives the an additional 30" in height. I added door inserts in the top two slots, drawer inserts in the bottom two, bins in the ones above that, and my Stamp-n-Storage paper holders (that we painted black) in the ones in-between.

I absolutely LOVE these paper holders!

I own 12 Stamp-n-Storage units right now…

• 12”x12” Paper Storage Units for Kallax/Ikea (6 of these)..13”x13” (shown above)
  
• Lock-down punch holder 64 slots, 30-3/4” wide
• Ribbon Shelf…32-1/2” wide
• Combo ink pad, marker, reinker holder for 60 colors, 30-13/16” wide

• and…a Medium Die Shelf
  

But I have a couple more in mind for a later purchase.

We painted them white and black to match the room. I had hired a professional for this painting task because we didn't have a place warm enough and with enough ventilation here in December to spray paint. She wanted to save me money and used latex. But latex is a water-based paint. The wood expanded a bit and we had some splitting that occurred. After she returned them "painted," I cried and cried because I thought they were ruined. I went away with my boys and husband for a Christmas weekend with my husband's side of the family. And when we returned, my fabulous mom and dad (who kept working through that weekend re-sanded and repainted and painted and painted….

These pieces look fabulous now. If you don't want to paint, they are beautiful as is in their natural state. But if you have to be matchy-matchy like me, then a spray paint over primer is recommended.

The two storage units to the right of my Kallax piece were ones I owned from years ago. These (from what I can tell) are no longer available. I found them at Home Depot. The Mills Pride brand closet cabinetry. But I did update them (and the door and drawer units on my Kallax piece) with Faglavik knobs so they coordinated more with my other cabinets.

We've now made our way around the room. And here you can see my lovely Sauder stamp set shelving unit that I got from Target. This unit is actually a bit different when you purchase it. It's made to stand freely on the floor. But my dad shortened the base and added a supporting 2×4. We painted the undersides (which were now exposed being up higher) and the 2×4 with black paint and secured it to the wall. Stampin' Up! stamp sets are in DVD-like containers, so this multimedia unit was perfect for this spot in my room.

Under that is a shallow 15" deep counter that I use for my Big Shot. I also store my Simply Scored scoring board here.

And in the cupboard below I have my card samples all organized by catalog page number!

All my cupboard and drawers have dampers so they close quietly. My lighting below my cabinets are controlled by a remote that I can use anywhere in the room. My flooring I purchased at Menards. And my paint (Valspar brand in the colors Limish and Afternoon Delight) all came from Lowes.

This is one of my longest posts, but I also wanted to share with you a few more pictures of the way my room USED to be than just the ones I shared on November 29th. Be warned, the change is drastic.

This is where I used to store my stamp sets. I had to squat to the floor to see most of them.

My ribbons were in a plastic tote near the floor on the other side of the room.

My totes and bins didn't have a good home. Only a few fit in this shallow cupboard.

I had to hide many under my table. In fact I tried to hide a LOT under that table.

There were many things I tried to hide. My mailing envelopes and boxes where in a pocket of space on my "foundation shelf" behind my desk area along with computer cords and things.

And I couldn't reach the ones that would fall to the floor between the cracks.

This is where that pocket was. See how the shelf around the room wasn't being utilized very well?

I just didn't know how to use it, so I just put things on it. It wasn't pretty at all.

Nothing had a logical home. Project Life products were on the office side of my room.

8-12/" x 11" Cardstock was on my office side.

I didn't have spaces for everything. Most of it sat in the open exposed, messy and uninspiring.

The lighting was sparse and the paint color was drab. The cabinets I DID have were to shallow to hold much. But I managed to shove in as much as I could.

(I'm so glad I don't have to kneel down to get customer orders anymore. I do not have strong knees.)

I think my biggest change and greatest relief was making better use of the room space in my new remodel. My crafting nook used to look like this!

I hope you enjoyed seeing my before and after photos of my craft room/office space. And I hope you found the details and links I shared helpful. I'll share my video tour next week.