The Craft Room: Part 3

I'm sure you've seen Part 1 of my Craft Room renovating project, and more recently, Part 2 where I had Glenn help me with replacing a piece of drywall.  It hasn't been as big of a deal as some renovation work, but it's a room I'm quite excited about.  I feel guilty having my bits and bobs all over the house when I have a project, or two, or three on the go.  I'm great at getting things started, but often don't get them done in one day.  BUT, when I have a craft room all to myself, I won't feel guilty about leaving things on the go down there.

This past week, I managed to get the room itself finished, and have only a few steps left (although daunting ones) to get the work island done.

After Glenn put the patch in, I had the task of mudding it.  I think I had put one coat of mud on last time I wrote, and was not expecting it to go well overall.  Doing the drywall upstairs though (however horribly) must have been good practice as I did okay this time!  It's about an 80% improvement on my last attempt.  Phew!  So the mud went on, then the primer... then the paint!  Walls = done!

Patched :) 

Primed

Painted Blue!

The next challenge is creating the work island.  If you'll recall, I got a $5 entertainment unit from Kijiji, and have the intent of chopping it a bit, putting legs on it, and then a big top to work on.

We managed to find a good day weather-wise and hauled the unit upstairs and out to the back yard to spray paint it.  I thought that would be the easiest way to paint it, instead of having to prime the faux-wood and then paint it.  We found a spray paint w/ primer right in it.  Yay!

Before .... that horrible fake wood

After .... a gentle
"almond" colour 

The next steps are;

1) Attach feet so that it stands off the ground a bit.  In a basement that has water through it on occasion, it's a kind of important point.  The trouble?  The space on the floor where it's going to stand is slanted.  Hmmmm.  I don't want the work surface slanted, so am going to have to do some magic.  My first trick will be to see if I can make the (pre-fab) feet different heights (eek).  My second and final trick will be to make my top cut on an angle, which means I'll never be able to use it anywhere else as the whole island will be custom to the angle of the floor.

2) Cut off the top.  The entertainment unit itself is too tall to work on comfortably, so I'm going to haul out the saw and chop the top down a bit.  The challenge in this is not only that I have to chop it, but that it may have to be done on an angle.  See step 1   :-P

3) Get a worktop.  I have decided that glass will be the best, easiest to use work surface.  It'll allow me to cut on it, to scratch off paint or other various craft materials, and to clean it properly.  A friend from work has a connection with glass - his father owns a glass shop here in town.  SO, he has advised me that he'll get whatever I need, which means I'll hopefully not spend a fortune getting a tempered piece of glass for my island.  He said they might even have a piece in their 'toss' pile from a shower cut to the wrong size or something that I could have for cheap.  Yay!

4) Attach the worktop, get a pair of legs to support the other side.  Since I wanted the worktop to be more of a square than just the 16" wide rectangle of the entertainment unit, I'm going to have to find legs for the other side.  Hopefully the Habitat store will have the height we need, which will be another 'reuse' piece thus saving the landfill a bit.

If it all works out, I'll be glad to say that the entertainment unit, the worktop, and the legs were all saved from landfill :)