LadyCave!

So I did no stitching this weekend.  I drove to Ikea, which is about a 2 hour drive (each way), and I figured that if I left at around 9, I'd be back by 2... only I didn't get back til 5, because there were a couple of pitstops (one of which was dress shopping for an upcoming wedding!)

So without a TUSAL, IHSW, or WIPocalypse update this month, let me present to you the (mostly finished) LadyCave.

I'm too lazy to gif, so here are a series of updates, I thought about making an animated thing, but lazed out.

Of COURSE I didn't clean before taking a picture, I wanted the afters to look as awesome as possible! Here it is as the spare room/craft room/guest bedroom/"OMG, look at all of that crap" Room!

First I painted with the "Thunder" paint that I've fallen in love with. It's a Greige that is very color changy, depending on the light.  Sometimes it's a blue toned grey, other times it's beigey, and sometimes it gets so light you cannot distinguish it from the white trim or ceiling!

The point of no return :)

Day 1: Ready for the floors

The end of the first day; I was so tired from running up and down the stairs I basically just sat in the closet and stayed there for probably an hour.  I had boxes of flooring upstairs and down, with the saws downstairs in the garage.  I would measure, run downstairs, cut the planks and then bring them upstairs, and continue with the full length boxes that were upstairs.  It got rather tiring after a while.

 Finished the second day.   I did not get a picture of the shoe molding I also put in (white like the trim, I very much dislike the wood colored shoe, because it looks like the floors are creeping up the walls to me!).

So next was the furniture.  I had a desk that I really liked from Ikea, because I love their expedit line, but the desk was too large, so the desktop portion is now a table that sits above Mona's crate, and the expedit unit is used in the closet for clothing storage.  I decided to go with 2 Kallaxes (the new expedit) and I would use the Kallax as one desk end support and adjustable legs on the the other.

I had extra Capita legs, so I mounted the 2x2 using that to have extra space underneath:

The curtains are mounted really high and move easily (I wanted to have plenty of curtains to darken the room for guests, and I have the desk forward enough and the cords oriented that they won't get in the way of free movement) and they're bright mulberry colored (Ikea called them "lilac"), which pops nicely with the room colors (I'll have to get a better shot).

The table/desk in the middle of the room needs to go, I just hate to let that glass go.   And of course, I'm not quite done with the room yet.  Hopefully everything will have a home (or as an anti-clutter keynote speaker I heard earlier this year says "everything will have an address").

The mattress is my placeholder for my murphy bed.   The table/TV in the corner are just living there until I figure out where they'll be permanently, all of my art and stuff is not hung yet, and all of my genealogy stuff is in bins next to the desk (on the other side of the steelcase chair that I need to refinish/reupholster).  You can see my laptop on the desk in front of the window - I can see the bird feeders from there!

Shelves will eventually go on the wall where the TV is sitting.  I don't want to install them until I figure out exactly where the Murphy bed is going.  Since it needs to be attached to wall studs, I don't want to kill myself getting the shelves up only to have to take them down again.  The shelves will hold my work binders (from classes, development training, regulations, etc.) and probably some of my genealogy books and binders, freeing up the Kallax slotsWhen the room is done, I'll start the Genealogy Do-Over and spend time on that.  But I'm so excited! A nice LadyCave and multipurpose room!  I have a friend staying over the weekend after next, so I'll have to make up the bed on the floor, but I should be getting the wood to start building the bed next week. Huzzah!

Here's a shot of the closet (so far).  Not everything is in there yet, but most of it is.  I have an old Expedit that I use in there that holds a lot of crafting stuff - magazines, fabrics, WIPs.   Next to it is my filing cabinet with most of my patterns, on top of that is a stack of organizers (usually used for nuts/bolts/etc) that I have labelled all of my DMC in.  My new specialty fibre box is on top of it, and I have one of those hanging clothes organizers for my pre-cut fabrics.  On top of the shelf is where my kits/fabric/etc are.  I'll probably re-arrange that, but for now it's keeping everyone out of the way.

I had bought the shoe organizers back when I was renting a room (when I first got to NC) because there was no closet storage, and now I use them to hold fabric or other crafting stuff (empty storage bags, knitting needles, etc - the one on the right is actually holding gloves, ear muffs, etc).   They're so useful I've never gotten rid of them.

And here's a shot of my thread organizer.   I need to get another one - once I added in more stuff, I'm out of space.  I'm thinking of separating out my silks and Rainbow Gallery cards into another bin.

I didn't do them alphabetically, but in the order of my frequency of use.

And, because I didn't do like the Twisted Stitcher did - giving each file card a letter, I left a lot of empty spaces between cards so I wouldn't have to re-do them if I buy a new thread or three now and again.

Organization and progress!  By the time Summer is done I'll have the room complete, and I'll be ready to get to work on my studies (I'm planning on going back to grad-school in the spring) and genealogy and other good stuff.

Having a room where I can quietly practice yoga is my favorite part, but having a room where I can do anything I want in peace is super nice, too.