Finally! We have a dedicated space for all things creative. In our old apartment we had a buffet cabinet where we kept all the bits and pieces the kids needed for their creative endeavors, and it was perfect for our teeny space. Unfortunately, since moving into this house, we’ve had most of their things scattered about or, even worse, still boxed up in the basement.

Several weeks ago we bit the bullet, realizing that as a family we really needed a creative space, and sacrificed our office/extra guest room. It’s been one of our best decisions ever. Really. Pretty much any time of day you’ll be bound to find one or more of us in the room — aided by the fact that Tomas and I both telecommute and use this space during work hours.

I can’t tell you how pleased I am to have all my crafty books out, right where I can grab them for reference any time I want. The look on the kids’ faces is priceless when they ask for some random bit that they haven’t seen in eight months, and Mama knows exactly where to find it. Not to mention Tomas’ pleasure at having his drafting table free and clear of our stuff.

We still have a bit of organizing to do, and definitely need to get some art up on our bare walls (my ugly-but-functional family calendar doesn’t count), but I am so very happy.

All the new stuff is from Ikea. The table is two 78" long table-tops braced together. The legs are adjustable, which gives us the height we were looking for, but they are wobbly even though we braced the table to the wall, so we’ll need to replace them at some point. The stools were the cheapest ones available at Ikea at under $20 each. The Book shelf is the Lack which Tomas was especially keen to have because shelves are the same thickness as the frame which gives it a balanced look. I do have to admit it looks quite nice.

The funnest part of the project (for me, since all I had to do was observe & make sounds of approval), are the shelves Tomas built in our two inefficiently used closets. This was Tomas’ first attempt at making his own shelving and I love that he recruited the kids to paint them cheery colors.

Yes. I am so very happy with how this worked out :-)