Introducing The Craft Cottage!

I’m so excited to be sharing with you a huge project that I’ve been gearing up to for months now! If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you may remember that I do all my crafting in a small space off my pantry I’ve lovingly dubbed, The Teeny Tiny Craft Room. (click link for more details) I love what we did with that space but it’s time to move into something a little bit larger so we’ve decided to begin renovations on The Craft Cottage!

Thank you to Sherwin-Williams and HomeRight for sponsoring this portion of The Craft Cottage.

History of The Craft Cottage

You’ve probably already seen The Craft Cottage in a few shots from other tutorials. It’s an in-laws quarters in my backyard with a bathroom and small kitchenette attached. It’s actually one of the reasons we bought our house since I was running a small accessories business and needed somewhere to work. The kids came around and I had little to no time to work so it was a no-brainer to offer the space to my mother when my step-father passed away. Can I just take a moment to tell you how awesome it was having my mom in my backyard? We absolutely loved it but all good things must come to an end and she moved out at the end of last year. (insert sad face emoticon)

I was so sad at my mom’s departure (which is only 20 minutes away but still!) that I didn’t even want to step foot in the cottage for a few months. Seriously, many tears were had! Unfortunately, the Teeny Tiny Craft Room is busting at the seams with craft supplies and I desperately need more storage space so I pulled myself together and started considering what I’d need to do to renovate the cottage.

In the Mood

Here’s a basic mood board for what I’d like to do in the Craft Cottage and as you can see, everything is very minimal and white. The space is relatively small (but still 5x bigger than what I had before!) so I want to keep everything really fresh and clean. I’ll be going with Sherwin-Williams Extra White Harmony eggshell paint for the walls and slat ceiling. We’ve used their Harmony line in our entire house and in addition to it’s great coverage, we love the Zero VOC formula that helps promote better indoor air quality during and after painting.

Tough Decisions

Deciding to paint over the natural wood ceiling was the toughest decision when it came to The Craft Cottage. I’ve always loved how homey and warm the wood made the room feel but it was going to be way too dark for pictures and video so white it is. We used the HomeRight Power-Flo Pro 2800 Airless Paint Sprayer to get into all the notches and I’m so glad we did! Painting that ceiling with a roller would have taken FOR-EVER. I’ll go into more detail about the obstacles surrounding painting next week so check back then!

Tore Up!

Since the majority of the room is going to be white, I thought I would do something fun with the flooring. There’s ceramic tile in the cottage right now and other than the fact that I really dislike how dark it is, it’s completely busted and coming up in areas. I’ll have two little boys running in and out of there as I work so the last thing I want is for them to cut up their feet on any sharp ceramic pieces.

The other big projects for The Craft Cottage include a large craft desk that I can stand or sit at with plenty of cubicles for even more storage, a small station for my kids to work at, some sort of vinyl and fabric organizer, and lighting solutions for photography and video. Obviously, it might be a while before all of that gets done but it’s good to have a plan, right?! Here’s a video where I give you an in-depth look at what The Craft Cottage looks like now and talk a bit about what I’d like to do in the future:

So there you have it! I’ll be talking about renovating The Craft Cottage fairly often on this blog and since I’m not a DIY blogger by trade, you can be sure there’ll be a good amount of bloopers. Hope you’ll join along with me on this crazy adventure!