The New Birdroom/Home office

Last month I went to North Carolina for a few days to visit one of my best friends, Hilary. While I was there Aaron took the opportunity, as a surprise for me, to begin renovations on our birdroom (the new home office). FYI: It's called the "birdroom" because, well, those of you who know me know that one of my favorite pastimes is birding. This room extends from the back of our house and overlooks our yard where I have several feeders so I can spy on our feathered friends.

Originally this room was more of a mudroom and had only a bench and a bookshelf in it as we had a larger room upstairs that served as our office/craft area. Then, last spring, we found a BEAUTIFUL antique desk at the library and moved it into this room. The desk was SO large that it was the only thing that fit in the room. Later, once we found out there was a little one on the way, we knew the room upstairs, our office/craft room, was destined to be sacrificed and become the baby's room. Thus, this presented a dilemma for us.

I, personally, enjoy small spaces. I don't know why. I just always have. When we were looking for houses we looked at a house that had large, spacious rooms; to me it wasn't comfortable. So, needless to say, I fell absolutely in love with our 1100 sq. ft. antique cape and bought it immediately. Yes, it's small. Yes, I know we will probably have to move in a few years to a bigger (sigh) place, especially if we have additional children (we have a two bedroom/1 & 1/2 bath). But, for now, we're staying put in our tiny hidey hole.

So we had to make a few decisions. The birdroom was going to have to become an official office/craft room. We moved out the giant desk (we have it stored in our basement, however, it will be a nice piece of furniture to pass down to our children and use when we have a bigger home). We also decided to cover up one of the windows to create a full wall of space. Aaron put up new sheet rock and made all new window trim and molding. We also made a trip to Ikea and purchased new furniture. I, of course, picked paint, carpets and curtains.

Now we have a perfect small extension from our kitchen that serves as our new and improved birdroom/craft room/home office/side entry. As I said, it's a small room (8X5) so we made the very best (functional and cute) use of the space.

I am in love with this room.

The original room (pay no attention to Homer, the scary lion growling)

With just the antique librarian desk and side window (and Homer, the ham)

Covered the side window

New sheet rock

First coat of primer (without window/floor molding. Aaron was convinced he needed to make new molding because he thought the old molding probably contained lead paint. Oh, Aaron "Worry" Molloy. That added a few days on to the project but he still insisted even after I promised not to let Alien use the window sills as a teether)

First coat of paint (and a little graffiti courtesy of Aaron)

Voila! View from the kitchen.

This cabinet is amazing. It was advertised as a "shoe" cupboard but I thought, "No, NO, NO! This will be perfect for my scrapbook papers, fabric and yarns!"

A quick note about my ribbon holder: Aaron made this out of one dowel cut in half and two wood blocks- super simple. I think I spent $1.50 on the dowel and wood blocks at Michaels (plus paint).

*Also, please note our license plate art work- This piece means a lot to both of us. The license plates belonged to Aaron's grandfather and the wood was a piece of drift wood that washed up on the shore one day while Aaron and I were taking a stroll on the beach in Portland with Pepe. Pepe liked the piece of wood so Aaron and I took it. One night for a date night we had a great idea... and the "art" is the product of that idea!

This room still has to serve as my birdroom therefore we keep my seeds and corn here so I have easy access to feed my birds (*Note: Aaron is in the process of making a threshold between this room and the kitchen; our next project is to rip up the linoleum in the kitchen and replace it with hardwood, so we might leave the threshold off for a bit- but that's the last thing to do before this room is finally DONE!)

My craft space/supplies

Workspace & Craft space (*Note the shelf in the corner that holds my punches: Aaron's grandfather made that shelf years and years ago. With a coat of paint, it fits my punches perfectly!)

All my equipment!

In total (sheet rock, curtains, rug, chair pad, furniture, paint, shelving/storage) we pulled this off for under $500. Y'all know I'm cheap but if you're crafty you can also find ways to recycle old things to make them functional and new)