The värde was c/o IKEA, and we’ve had that orange daybed for years. It was originally in our short-lived guest room (now the nursery). It should be good on the playroom side of the basement, and I’m going to skip a rug on that side. Kathryn pointed out that her kids actually prefer a bare floor to slide around on, so we’re going to give it a go.

We’ve had the 4 Seasons in Chicago (first edition) print for a while now too. Brandon gave it to me as a gift, and I’m looking forward to having it up on the walls. And speaking of the walls… I’m rethinking that grellow color. I chose it thinking that the floor on that side would be offset by the black and white rug, taking up most of the space. now that it’s gone though, I’m not sure I like the way it’s looking. I’ve never painted a room white before, but might like it here. I’m still thinking about doing a paint-by-numbers wall mural too. How awesome would that be?

It’s kind of a commitment though, eh? And you know that if we ever move, it will suffer the same fate as the dragon that I painted over when we moved in.

Update:
I made a mockup.

It looks awesome.

© 2012, published by Making it Lovely as The Basement Studio and Playroom Plan | 37 comments | affiliate links may be used in posts

I’ve made more progress on the basement studio!

I picked up another Expedit (I call them my “cubes”), and a couple of freestanding kitchen counters from IKEA’s Värde line. I’ve always wanted the one with all of the drawers, so I’m glad that I finally have space for it. All of my supplies will go in the drawers, and my products will be lined up on the shelving.

I like to designate a separate center for shipping. Here’s what it looked like in the previous studio space:

I see those pictures and I think “ugh, that looks so messy and disorganized!” But, um, here’s what the new shipping center looks like right now:

Yeah, I have just a wee bit of work to do there. I’m glad to have closed storage now though — that will go a long way in making it look more neat.

The main layout is setup and the big furniture pieces are in place, so I’m going to have to get down there and start organizing. I’m wondering about the windows now. I love playing with color and pattern in window curtains, but the basement windows don’t really call for window treatments. There is a surprising amount of natural light in the basement, and I want to preserve as much of that light as possible. So no curtains? Or yes, but with them mounted extra wide and open all the way? The windows are high and short too, so that may be another reason to eschew treatments.

© 2011, published by Making it Lovely as Basement Studio Progress | 34 comments | affiliate links may be used in posts

I used to have a great little studio. Remember?

Oh, former studio! You were so good to me and my shop. Then I had a baby. And then another one. And I needed that upstairs bedroom back. So we remodeled and finished the basement to make room, and now (finally!) it’s time to get the new studio up and running. I last showed you the space when it was newly finished and looking rather empty.

Here’s what it looks like these days, with the furniture moved in.

I’m excited to be working with IKEA for this stage of the basement remodel. I already had one of their butcher-block kitchen islands and I’m adding a few more pieces from their Värde line because they work perfectly in craft rooms. And yay, I finally have a space to bring back the striped Stockholm Rand rug! I tried it a couple of years ago in the dining room, but it just wasn’t right for that space.

It’s going to look much better in the studio. I’m bringing another over to the playroom side too for continuity.

I have a lot of organizing and decorating to do. The play room can wait a little, but I’m eager to open Pink Loves Brown up again, and obviously I need everything in place before that can happen.

© 2011, published by Making it Lovely as Starting on the Basement Studio (Finally!) | 46 comments | affiliate links may be used in posts

Let’s head down the stairs to take a look around.

And now a before:

And after:

Before:

After:

That’s as good as it gets for empty basement ‘before and after’ photos, because once we reached this stage we started moving in all of our stuff. Witness, we couldn’t even wait at this point to start filling up the storage area.

The play space used to look like this:

Now it’s a play room, and it looks like this:

And of course, we have the bathroom and laundry room sneak peeks you’ve already seen:

Our house feels so much bigger now. I think we added about 600 sq. ft. of living space to our existing 1400. Now it’s on to the fun part: decorating it!

© 2011, published by Making it Lovely as The (Mostly) Finished Basement | 137 comments | affiliate links may be used in posts

I still need to choose colors for the laundry room (something that will work with our red washer and dryer, which you can kind of see in this lovely picture), and the half-bath (with its very short ceiling and lack of windows). I had a dream that I painted the bathroom orchid, like the Crayola crayon color, but I don’t know if that’s the way to go in reality. And maybe a creamy white for the laundry room? I think a robin’s egg blue would look nice too, but I’m not normally a big fan of blue.

Any suggestions?

© 2011, published by Making it Lovely as Basement Paint Colors | 56 comments | affiliate links may be used in posts

My sweet, colorful, lovely little studio is going to move into the scary basement. I’ll miss you, studio!

I’ll be honest. I’m pretty sensitive to my surroundings, so working in our unfinished basement is going to be a bit depressing. Plus I scare easily and I think my assistant Erika might too, and I can see us both being weirded out by spending time down there. It IS a little spooky, but we don’t have any other options.

Eventually Brandon and I would like to put up drywall and make the lower level feel like the rest of our home, but we don’t have the budget right now. We’ll clean it up and arrange things as best we can, but I fear it will still be icky.

*Update*
I mentioned the basement walls in a couple of the comments below, but here is a photo. Unpaintable, bizarre crackled tiles. No ceiling either, and wires everywhere. Here’s a link to view the photo in a larger size.

My studio will become Eleanor’s new room though, and that will make me happy. It’s going to be adorable! And the room (12×12) feels so much bigger than her current space (7×14 with sloped ceilings), so that will be nice for her. The nursery will stay a nursery since it works really well as such. I do plan to make at least a few changes though, regardless of gender. I want the new baby to have a look of his/her own.

Now all of this puts greater urgency on #9 of my 30 Before Thirty list: Clean out the basement. All of this shuffling of space hinges on getting it ready, and I am SO not looking forward to that task.

© 2010, published by Making it Lovely as Making Room for Baby | 129 comments | affiliate links may be used in posts

I had been planning to use the pitcher as a vase all along, so I picked up some asters and kermits when I was out running errands today. So cheery.

Oh, and I highly recommend checking out The Pioneer Woman’s Photoshop Actions if you like the faded look of the photo above. I used the “Seventies” action on that one, but they’re all pretty amazing.

© 2009, published by Making it Lovely as A Little Pick-Me-Up | 21 comments | affiliate links may be used in posts

The studio is where I package up all of the orders for my shop (Pink Loves Brown). The room may not always be this tidy, but it usually stays fairly neat because everything has a place. That makes my little perfectionist heart happy.

It looked like this originally (eek). Brandon and I put in the bamboo floor ourselves, painted (walls, ceiling, and trim), installed new closet doors, and switched out the ceiling fixture. I made the curtains out of Moda’s uptown “mom’s couch” fabric.

Here’s the view in from the doorway.

This is what I refer to as “the shipping center”. It’s my least favorite side of the room (all of the open storage looks a little cluttered), but it’s very functional and necessary.

I’ve shown this photo of my order sorting process before, but here it is again. I put patterned paper along the back of a shoe cubby from Target.

Here’s the underside of the table with all of the shipping boxes and supplies. The white shelves are also from Target.

I store envelopes for my cards and stationery along the open shelves of my IKEA VÄRDE kitchen island. Most of my crafty supplies are inside the closet. I removed the clothing rail that was originally in there and I assembled shelving from The Container Store to hold everything.

Here’s a peek inside.

I store some extra envelopes and my ironing board behind the door. You can also see a little of my photo shoot setup along the right (which I’ve shown before) tucked into the funny little alcove there. I store extra shipping boxes under that table.

Here’s another view. Those suitcases along the top of the bookcase are for sale in my shop.

So there you have it. My studio!

© 2008, published by Making it Lovely as Studio Tour! | 204 comments | affiliate links may be used in posts

We’re in the middle of a photo shoot today! Brandon and I posed (very casually – “turn left, no, more right, tilt your body, lean in, hold it…”) in the library, and the office and studio are being photographed as well. It’s for a September magazine, so I’ll spill the beans when it’s out!

$50 worth of flowers (in 5 vases) has made the house very cheery, by the way.

The photographers have been here since 8 o’clock this morning, and I’m not sure they’re even halfway finished yet! Their photos look amazing though.

© 2008, published by Making it Lovely as Acting Natural | 23 comments | affiliate links may be used in posts

They were only $4 each, and they’re meant to hang from a shelf. I intended to hang them, but ran into trouble with the items on the shelves above not being able to sit flat. I decided to just set them on top of my card-catalog style boxes instead.

IKEA GORM clip-on basket and KASSETT drawers

Now I’m able to store my cards, stationery, pins, magnets, etc. in the drawers, and place a few of each in the baskets above to grab quickly. It’s a nice system, and I’m pretty excited about it! Sometimes I don’t realize how much time can be saved and how much better my things can be organized until I start using a new system.

I also realized that I have a penchant for organizing with squares. I love to see how other people have used squares, cubes, and grids to organize their belongings too. That, coupled with my love for flickr, led me to create my first flickr group: Organizing is for Squares.

Please feel free to join, and if you have any photos that would fit in well… please include them!

© 2007, published by Making it Lovely as Organization is for Squares | 12 comments | affiliate links may be used in posts