I started scrapbooking during a time in our lives when my husband worked out of state and we were living in corporate housing.  I created like many new scrappers on my dining room table and quickly outgrew that space finally ending up in what amounted to as a closet sharing it with my family and the computer.  When after several years we moved back to our home (a 100+ year old house) we put our heads together to find a workable solution for my crafting needs.  The answer was found in our laundry room.  The only room we had yet to remodel (the rest of the house had undergone a remodel years prior).  Imagine a 8x12 room with a door in the middle along the 12 foot side and a windo****posite.  The washer and dryer were in opposite corners and sides of the room!  Brown shag carpet with ugly bleach stains covered the floor.  The walls and ceiling were old bead board and soared 12 foot high with a tiny single bulb light fixture.  One piece of ventilated wire shelving serving as a clothes rod and a water heater completed the room. 

Our budget was tight, five years of renters had destroyed our home, it needed attention from top to bottom and spending big bucks on the laundry room makeover wasn't going to happen.  So if this was going to be a workable, inviting, attractive creative space of my dreams it would be up to me to find affordable solutions.  As luck would have it a friend from work had a windfall inheirtance and decided to remodel her 20+ year old kitchen with new cabinets, the works!  I quickly asked her what her plans were for her old cabinets and she said I could have them.  I consulted my husband and he said it would be best if we removed them as a contractor on a job might not take the extra time and care needed to remove the cabinets so they would be useable.  Plans were made for us to come demo their kitchen on the Saturday before their contractor was starting their remodel.  Two truckloads later and I had a carport filled with ugly, scarred cabinets.  I wondered what in the world had I gotten my huband into, how could he possibly use these to create a work area for me? 

But before cabinets could be installed other major things had to happen.  After ripping out the carpeting some water damage was discovered to the subflooring so that would have to be replaced.  Then new washer connections would have to be made in order to rotate the direction the washer sat and a dryer vent would have to be installed along with new wiring.  My husband built a platform for them to sit upon and the single HAVC vent was routed under the platform.  An old water pipe that was unused and capped off but still connected which came thru the floor in front of the window would have to cut off under the house and removed.  The walls would need to be drywalled, the ceiling lowered, a light fixture and wiring installed, all before cabinet placement could be considered.  Ever mindful of costs I opted to salvage a ceiling fan removed from another room, it was white with three lights, perfect! 

This room gave my husband a chance to teach our son how to do drywalling and plumbing.  It warmed my heart to watch them working side by side, father teaching son, and they were doing it all for me so I could have a place of my own.  I love my guys so much, they are wonderful to me. 

Once the cabinets went in I was lucky enough to have a wall unit that spanned almost the entire 8 feet of the wall.  A single door base cabinet in one corner and a double door base in the other leaving a space between large enough for me and a paper rack created my work top.  Then reality struck, there wasn't any money in the budget for a piece of countertop and the salvaged countertop didn't span the entire area.  So I spent the next year working on a four foot plastic folding table while I daydreamed about colors and room decorations.

We moved on to other rooms in our home but I still was anxious to finish my room.  I was nearing the half way point to having a great space, most of the major key elements were in place.  A year ago on Mother's Day weekend I received a great gift, a piece of salvaged countertop that my husband purchased for $10.  I couldn't wait for it to be installed, finally a work area, I could get off the plastic table!  I asked for my gift to be for the walls and cabinets to be prepped for painting.  They would have to be sanded and I hate sanding but love to paint.  My husband reluctantly agreed, and I started to move my things out.  I had gotten very lucky over the past year and was able to get two of the wooden rubberstamp display hutches used in Hobby Lobby's and Michaels.  But I had no wall space to mount them and after a quick poll of my friends as to their opinion a decision was made to mount both of them side by side and cover the window completely.  It was a tough call, the window let in natural light but two stamp hutches were storage I desperately needed.  Each friend said "lose the window" and I haven't regretted that decision.  And should I ever want my window back it's still there, under the hutches, easily recovered.

My first paint job in the room was to paint my cabinetry a rich chocolate brown.  I painted over the hinges as well as my husband explained replacing them would be expensive and would basically serve no purpose since these worked just fine.  He said my options were to paint over them or around them but he wasn't removing them and putting them back on.  I opted to paint over.  This isn't a fancy room and I'm on a shoe string budget of creative salvaging and repurposing so the end result wouldn't be worth the effort required.  And I think the hinges look just fine painted, no one has ever commented on them.  Then I painted my walls a yellow color called caramel, and the room looked nice but seemed to lack any zing.  Lots of careful shopping down the clearance aisle of my Hobby Lobby snagged me some decorative pieces, a London clock with square black distressed wood frame and a wooden letter sign "London", each purchased for 90% off regular price.  A stained wooden shelf last used in the corporate house to hold fantasy figures became my over the door shelf to hold my letter sign.  Next I went thru my fabric stash and found some brick red homespun to sew a skirt for the water heater.  I scored an antique non working camera on ebay for 99 cents plus shipping. 

Then the unspeakable happened, I quit scrapping, I lost my scrapping mojo.  I can't explain it, I think I just had spent so much time daydreaming about this room that reality just didn't live up to my expectations.  Don't get me wrong, I loved having a space of my own with cabinets to store things but I never really was satisfied with my organization of the space.  Since the cabinets were old the shelves didn't adjust, the base cabinets were deep and bending that low to reach the back of them was impossible for me.  I was disorganized and unhappy that my overall vision of the room never came into reality and that was my fault as I was the decorator.  I was still on subflooring as well which bothered me as I liked to walk barefoot thru the house.  I appreciated all the work that went into my room from my husband and son but now it was down to me and what I could make of it. 

So for the last 9 months my room has served daily duty as the laundry room and a brief time when I made a few Christmas cards, that's it.  All that effort and I wasn't using it.  Then inspiration struck, it seems simple enough but sometimes you can't see the forest for the trees and that was me, I should simply repaint it.  So last weekend in honor of National Scrapbooking Day I set about finally creating a space that I wanted to be in, a space I could enjoy and be proud of, a space that reflected me and creativity. 

Stay tuned for my next installment - part deux