Melissa’s craft room

When my friend Melissa asked me for a couple of ideas for her craft room, I did that little dance Laura Linney does in Love, Actually when she brings Rodrigo Santoro home from the work holiday party. Obviously, different goals, although I will say that my endeavor had a (ha) happy ending, while poor Laura and Rodrigo only got to make out a little.

The craft room had a row of lower cabinets along one side, an heirloom dresser Melissa wanted to keep, and a nice window to let lots of light in for sewing and other crafts. Melissa wanted to use Behr’s Swan Sea for the walls, which she had leftover from another project, and is ordering a decal as well, so I used those colors to come up with this palette for the room:

She also has a white bookcase, which fit in perfectly with my idea of adding as much white as possible to the room in order to brighten up the muted aqua and wood cabinets. A warm, sunny yellow completes the palette. In the board below, I used stand ins for Melissa’s bookcase and chest of drawers since I could not find the exact items online.

Clockwise from top left: Along with storing craft books, Melissa can use canvas bins for a more uniform look or go the see-through route with mason jars, clear plastic and acrylic bins and organizers for her crafting supplies. I know, from experience how tired your eyes get when sewing or doing other needlecrafts, so I suggested a pendant or task lamp over her sewing machine. The existing white bookcase can be brightened up with paper if Melissa wants a pop of color. A round mirror over the chest of drawers will reflect the light coming in from the window and also break up all the right angles in the room from the bookcase, dresser, window, etc. A brown runner will ground all the wood tones in the room and still stay in the same color palette. Finally, a large piece of pegboard and a kit of various options for hanging items on the board will provide lots of organization and versatility. Melissa has three little ones so maybe she’ll want to hang scissors and pin-holders from the pegboard, and away from curious little hands.

Information for all the items available here.