Yesterday, I shared my new craft room.
Thank you so much for all the nice comments! You sure do know how to make a girl feel good.
Today, I'm sharing my craft room's "before" and its painted floor.
Before this room was my craft room, my daughters took turns using it as a bedroom. The (terrible-have no idea what that green is) scan on the left is of my then three year-old's bedroom when this part of the house was still brand new. The trim hasn't even seen its first coat of paint yet. As you can (hopefully) see, she loved pink and white flowers. The center photo is from middle school, covered in bright blue and posters, and the one on the right is from high school with its toned-down softer blue and Urban Outfitters comforter. I always let my kids choose their own colors and decor to reflect their own tastes at every age (within my limited budget.)
This was my craft room right before I took it over. My daughter moved into the guest room to sleep, and we turned this one into her funky sitting room for her last semester of college. We had a lot of fun decorating it together on a shoestring since we knew she'd be using it for only a short time.
My little girl graduated from BSU in December, and I booted her out.
Please don't feel too sorry for her, though. She only got booted out of her sitting room since she doesn't need it for studying anymore.
She's still across the hall in this guest room while she works and saves money to travel in France this summer. After that, we really are booting her out!
And that's my craft room's illustrious background.
It didn't take me long to get to work.
And boy, did it need a lot of work! I started by taking down the high shelves and filling hundreds of little holes left from years of wall posters. My daughter scraped off the tiny glow-in-the-dark stars from the ceiling. Then we pulled up the ancient green carpet.
We can't afford hardwood floors yet, and more carpet didn't seem practical for a work room. I've seen painted plywood subfloors on Pinterest and on other blogs, so I decided to give it a try. After all, it's a work room, not the Taj Mahal, right?
First, my husband taped himself into the room, put on a heavy duty mask, and sanded the floor. The dust was extreme! I decided not to bother filling holes and cracks since this is hopefully just a temporary fix until my dream hardwoods come through. After he was done, I washed the walls and floor really well with lots of hot water. (TSP isn't recommended on bare wood.)
I thought it would be good to paint the walls first, so after agonizing over choosing the perfect tints of off-white, I got to work painting.
Who knew choosing white is so difficult? It is! In fact, it's the hardest time I've ever had picking out colors. The ceiling is a flat neutral white paint that my Benjamin Moore dealer sells just for ceilings.
The walls are two coats of BM satin Bone White. I only use Benjamin Moore paints because they go on like butter without drips and spatters, cover great (that's only one coat over that dark grey in the above photo), give a velvety finish, and seriously last forever. Every time I've been tempted to save money on less expensive paint brands, I've regretted it.
The trim is BM semigloss White Dove, which I've used throughout my house. I vacuumed the floor again after painting the walls and trim and washed it with hot water again very well, and then I painted it with two coats of stain blocking primer.
I followed the primer with two coats of BM floor paint in White Dove. (All the paints I used were latex, but the floor paint was still pretty stinky.)
I forgot I would have to apply shoe molding to cover the gap left from the carpet. Boy, was I glad the floor and trim were both the same color as I painted that skinny little strip.
You can see from this close up that all the screw holes and cracks between the sheets of the subfloor plywood show under the paint. I don't mind because this is my shop, and to me it just looks like a shop floor. If it was permanent, though, or meant for a bedroom, I'd definitely take the time to smooth it out and make it look nicer.
I was tempted to paint a diamond pattern on the floor. I love the one Gail from My Repurposed Life did in her kitchen and the one KariAnne from Thistlewood Farm did in her bedroom. I even bought the second color of paint. But it's a ton of work, and before I started it I realized most of my floor would be covered by a rug.
I always only buy what I call Tucker-proof rugs. That means they have to somewhat camouflage Tucker's black lab fur because I'm not one of those people who vacuum everyday. I found this Tucker-proof 5 x 7 rug at Bed, Bath, and Beyond on sale for $70. I love the Van Gogh artsy swirly hooked rug-looking fun design it has going on, and so far, it's been really easy to keep clean.
And what about the white painted floor with my black dog? I have a lot of hardwood floor in my house, and I was so tired of fighting my big vacuum every few days to vacuum up Tucker's fur. One day while shopping in Lowes, I saw this thing on sale for $300. (That's a LOT of moola!) Frustration combined with impulse and before I knew it, I put it in the cart. My husband did one of those eye-rolling head shaking moves, and I said, "Don't even go there, I need this thing!"
"This thing" is a Dyson battery powered hand held vacuum, and, ladies, it has changed my life! I can zip this baby around all the hard surface floors in my entire house in about five minutes. And it's fun! No cords, no fighting a big bulky vacuum, no hassles. I should work for Dyson, I love this thing so much. It was worth every single penny.
Whew, got a bit off track there, didn't I? :)
Anyway...
That's the story of my craft room before it became my craft room and its painted floor.
To see the rest of the completed room, click here.
I'm so glad you stopped by today!
