Before, During, Wait for the After

After 5 years of not living in our home (employment reasons), we moved back in two years ago and were faced with a house destroyed by people we had called friends. I'll leave the horrific details to your imagination but suffice it to say we had to repair our entire home with a budget of about $1200 which covered the leaky pipes, leaky roof, major holes in the walls, and lots of other crimes committed to our poor house! I know everyone loves a before/after so here's one of my favorite rooms in my house, my creative space. I also share the 8 x 12 space with my washer/dryer. Major DIY work was done by my darling men folk to carve this space out for me. I'll spare you the gory DIY details. Our budget was like $20, seriously I don't remember what we spent exactly but I do remember we didn't have anything to spend so I'm sure it was under $100. The cabinets were completely salvaged from a friend's kitchen remodel. The work has been done in stages over the last two years.

Phase One which I call humble...

New countertop scored for $10 and my darling husband sanded my walls one weekend so I could paint. I repurposed the over the sink shelf thingy, great for holding more crafting junk.

This is Phase Two ~ A little progress but nothing pretty yet...At this point I was still figuring out how I wanted it to look...and that breaker box? Yeah, I know! Eyesore!

Hmm, I wonder where those stamp hutches came from? Anyone have a guess? I basically have no wall space now with the cabinets so in order to use these hutches dear sweet hubby installed them right over the only window in the room. I took a poll with my friends and everyone said Lose the window, keep the hutches! So I did and I truly haven't missed it because the hutches are awesome. Visually cluttered? You betcha but I love them. And they are the very first thing you see entering the room as they are directly opposite my door.

On to Phase Three ~ Wait for it, I will post those pictures soon!