A few years ago we moved into a house with a partially unfinished basement. The increase in space was so nice and gave me an opportunity to turn one of the unfinished rooms into a craft room. I love the idea of having an unfinished craft room with two little girls by my side. Paint can spill on the floor and there isn’t a mad rush to clean it up because the floor will be ruined. A little glitter on the floor doesn’t hurt a thing when the room is not completed!
There were a LOT of challenges that came with an unfinished basement room being turned into a fun, functional room. Here is what the room looked like before we moved in. These photos were taken during the inspection when I had time to roam the house while in the process of purchasing it. All of the items in the pre-photos are from the previous owners. You can see the mud on the wall and the icky pipes. We can’t forget the clutter.
My IKEA Craft Room
The big issues that stood out were the Georgia clay soaked concrete walls, the ugly water pipes, and the exposed studs between rooms (not pictured). My girls wouldn’t go in the craft room because they referred to it as the “blood room” from the dirt streaking down the wall. I couldn’t blame them. It wasn’t a pretty room at all (even with all the clutter gone).
The first thing we did was to hang up IKEA curtains to block the wood that separated the rooms. We had used one set in our old dining room and brought the curtains still on the rod with us to the new house. For the other wall that you could step through to the next room, we used another set that I had purchased previously that was still new in the package. I loved that we ultimately didn’t have to pay out of pocket for that quick update (it was a sunk cost, as my husband would say). The curtains were left loose on wall instead of pulled tight which creates a fun look.
Putting the curtains up was our AHA Moment. That is when we decided that yes something easy and frugal could turn this room into a real room and not an unfinished space in the basement.
Then we painted the two concrete walls with a paint made for concrete walls. We used BRAND and I chose the COLOR. Seeing the clay disappear under the paint on the walls was amazing. The room felt so fresh and so clean. I used a rag to clean the pipes…..and then painted them as well. To break up the color and give a little oomph to the room I painted a purple stripe using some exterior paint we had on hand to paint the Big Sister’s raised garden from last summer.
On the concrete floors we placed some leftover carpet from when the rest of the house was recarpeted. It doesn’t go wall to wall and that is great since we can easily sweep or vacuum up the messes (ahem, glitter) from under the desks.
Speaking of the desks…let’s talk furniture. I have a collection of IKEA catalogs from over the years. I knew I wanted three different desks in the room. IKEA had the perfect solution. We purchased the 3 Linnmon Table tops and 2 sets of Alex Drawers. The drawers hold paint, glitter, glue, construction paper, paper, baby wipes for messes, and more.
There was still a lot of other stuff that needed to be put away. I want to live by the motto “A place for everything and everything in its place” but that cannot happen if you do not have adequate places to put everything. There were piles of stuff everywhere and it wasn’t pretty or conducive to being in the craft room. So I headed to IKEA to purchase one Kallax unit. It turned out that one wasn’t enough, so I went back and bought another. It’s a good thing IKEA is a 40 minute drive!
See the HELLO letters? That craft is not done yet, but I had to let you know that I used the cardboard from the Kallax units to create those letters. The tutorial will follow one of these days!
Love IKEA or want to see how a simple cabinet cleared our clutter? Check out this post about Clearing Laundry Room Clutter.
How often do YOU shop at IKEA? Do you have a favorite IKEA piece in your house?
Please note: This post is in no way associated with IKEA. I purchased all of the items mentioned in this post with my own money.
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Leandrea is a married mom of two girls, ages 13 and 12, living in Atlanta, GA. She is passionate about helping people save money one coupon at a time. Read more