Sunroom Redo, Part 3 -- Fill 'er Up

Okay, I want to preface this post with two important things to remember...maybe three things.

1. This room is far from what I would consider "done."  There are still a lot of goals on my to-do list, which I'll explain as I go, but for now, just know that these pics represent progress.
2.  This is a shared space.  This room not only houses all of my craft stuff, but it's also Dave's music room and surf storage space.  In designing the layout of this room, we have to consider all three functions (and hopefully end up with a space that we also like to sit in and enjoy our morning coffee).
3.  Okay, there might not be a number 3.  I just wanted to make sure all my bases are covered before we get this party started.

Before I show you where we're currently at, let me remind you of what this room looked like last month:

Pretty awful.

Then we painted:

And I painted some laminate cabinets and set them up on the east wall (the wall without windows).  The left cabinet is Dave's and is nearly empty.  As time goes on, he'll probably be putting music equipment inside; things like his music books could find a nice home here.  The right cabinet is mine, and I've got present wrapping supplies, camera equipment and old photo albums stored, among other things.

After setting up the cabinets, we took a minor two week-ish break, and one night (sort of on a whim), we decided it was time to continue the transformation.  This was mostly spurred on by Dave's guitars.  They had been sitting on guitar stands in one corner of the room, and Daniel loved to sneak in here when no one was watching and "play" them.  A two year old with a guitar on a stand usually only ends one way; luckily, I was able to catch him before the guitar took more than one or two spills, but something needed to change.  Fast.

So, Dave headed over to a music store here in town, came back with some wall mounts, and now we have this:

After we set up the guitars, we went ahead and moved my craft table into the room and, as you can see, it sits just underneath.  One of my not-too-out-of-reach goals is to add some shelves onto the wall adjacent to the guitar wall so that I gain even more storage for craft items -- especially those things that are not child-safe (scissors, anyone?).

You may also be eyeing a conspicuous, super ugly piece of office furniture which is my craft chair.  This is the sister chair to this beauty, sitting at the kitchen table:

I have similar plans to reupholster the remaining chair the same way, different fabric.  This was a super easy project, and I have no idea why I haven't done it, yet.

Okay, let me back up a little.  This is the view of our sunroom as you walk in.  I took this picture while standing in the laundry room, just off the kitchen.  Just beyond the sunroom is our swimming pool.

You'll notice that our large wing back chair has made a move (it used to be in our living room -- more on that in an upcoming post, promise).  You're also looking at a few more random pieces of furniture -- our old coffee table, a dining chair, and a cute little teal-y green chair.  I love the little green chair.  It's actually an antique folding chair.  My mom rescued it from a literal dumpster and had it refinished with new fabric.  She said that when she pulled it out, it was all faded with rusty hinges and looked pretty bad... but look at it now!  She gave it to me for my birthday this year.  I'm not sure where it's final home will be, but for now, it's keeping company with the other random, mismatched furniture.

I'd love to turn this into a finished corner with furniture which looks like it was meant to be there, but this is the stuff I had sitting around the house.  This will have to do until more cohesive furniture becomes the priority.  Right now, it's pretty low on the list.

Also in this corner is Dave's music set up -- two large speakers, his amp, a microphone, and some sort of control panel.  Don't ask me to be more specific...I don't know exactly what all of his equipment does, but I do know that it does something and that it needs to be a part of the set-up.  And Dave has been awesome about making it as neat as possible.  If you're into playing music at all (or know someone who is), you know that it's just messy.  There are cords everywhere.  It's not exactly aesthetically pleasing.  But Dave has hidden a lot of that pretty well, I think.

Here's a shot from a slightly different angle.  The picture above the doorway is a photograph I took in Virginia on a trip there years ago.  I need to get this framed and to find a more permanent home for it, but for now, I enjoy seeing it every time I look into this room.

Okay, moving on.  If you walk into the room, and turn back around to your left, you'll see my art shelf.  A friend of ours actually built this shelf a little while ago, then moved into a smaller place.  So we're storing it for him and his wife until they get back into a larger place again.  It makes for pretty great storage, though.  It's ginormous, and almost all of my stuff fits on this thing.

From the top down (not including the record player on top), I've got: 1) odds and ends, mostly things that I don't want to put on a lower shelf to keep things child friendly-ish.  A basket of notions, another basket of yarn, cards I've made, paintbrushes, pin cushion, etc.  2) bins with various supplies, including paint, markers, crafty things for my kids, and various adhesives and Mod Podge.  3) my sewing machine (I know, I need to get a cover for it), spools of thread, a box of tools (scissors, glue gun, etc.) and my craft paper supply.  4)  my fabric.  5) paper scraps in the wine box and more crafty supplies in the green metal box.  Oh, and a couple of records.

My organization may not make a whole lot of sense to others, but I know where everything is and it doesn't look half bad, either.  These are the important things, right?

The opposite corner, diagonally, is where we'll be storing Dave's surfboards and leashes.  Dave has plans to build a simple storage rack for these guys.  They'll eventually stand vertically, probably next to the blue cabinets to get them away from a window (and the sun).  But for now, they're doing all right leaning against the window, blinds closed.  We've also got a few pieces of music gear over here which we'll need to figure out how to store.

And that's it -- you guys are now officially up to date on our sunroom progress.  I really love the changes this room has seen in the last month.  I think my very favorite part is being able to open the doors to the laundry room and into the sunroon (there are two) to let the light come through.  It really does brighten up the kitchen with those doors open, and it doesn't look like a dungeon back there, anymore.  It's actually given me the itch to transform the laundry room into a space I love as well.  Right now, the laundry room a very boring utilitarian space with so-so appliances and little to no shelving.  And, until recently, no natural light.  Hmmm....

Thanks for reading!
Sarah