Of Dreams.

My craft room is finished! Hooray for making dreams a reality :) After 3 months of saving up and planning all the little things that come with constructing a room/extension.

It took 5 or 6 days, I think, to finish the room. I decided not to put in insulation as I didn't have enough moolah. But, I will get that done soon.

Dimensions:
1. The room itself is 6 feet by 9 and 1/2 feet. So it roughly took 3/4 of the veranda.

2. The table is 20 inches in width. Initially had that pegged at 16 inches. And they were able to finish that but I begged them to add 4 inches because I felt that it would barely hold the wide albums I use for my scrapbooks. They were able to do it, bless them. And the table wraps the 2 walls since I wanted lots of table space.

3. The table rises 33 inches from the floor. I wanted to make use of the space underneath for small cabinets (those buy-1-take-1 shelves in Shopwise which thankfully was still available when I made the trip). It's the same size as the bases for my first craft table. And this also meant I could still use my bar tool which serves as my craft chair. I had Mang Tony carve 2 square holes at the back of the table, on top of the electrical sockets. Didn't want my cables and wires all around the table :) I had one drawer built in since we had extra wood.

4. I decided not to have the window placed on the narrow wall but had it installed on the wider wall. It fit right in the middle and I had Mang Tony wrap the shelves around it. Works pretty well since natural light can come in, and I have a view of my sister's herb garden. Not bad, no? The window is 60cm by 60cm (which cost me Php1800).

5. The shelves. For the longer side of the table, I requested to have the shelves hanging and have at least 13 inches of clearance (they did 14, which was great). For the shorter side I was okay with the bases of the shelves on either end but again asked for a clearance 15 inches. This side would house my Silhouette and my printer, which are my two most used tools. The shelves also go up the ceiling - the first tier in the wide wall is 10 inches tall and 8 inches wide. While the 2nd and 3rd tier have the same height, they are deeper by 2 inches. These 3 top shelves are the same even on the narrow wall. The first shelf on the narrow wall are crannies with 8 inches of height as well as depth.

6. At the last minute, I decided to have a PVC door installed instead of a wooden one. I can have that changed if I have the money, but for now, it will do.

All in all, I spent around 60k for everything: construction materials, labor, and organizing containers and other things.

Will post more pictures soon after I've marked them.

*happy dance*

Of Courage.

Yey! I am back to blogging in my little corner of cyberspace :) So 2014 has come at last. Let's backtrack a bit a few months... Opened my little shop online - Instagram and FB - my La Bella Rosa Crafts shop. I threw the towel, and I've started to sell fabric and washi and paper tapes online. Not much but I will eventually sell a lot of stuff. Baby steps, honey. I think that was the best thing I did last year.

This year, 2014, I intend to build myself a craft room. Yes, you saw that right, a CRAFT ROOM! Yay! I'm so excited! Hehe. I realized I needed an area for all my crafts, scrapbooking stuff, my beading accessories! My area in the room, which I share with my older sister, is beginning to feel a bit crazy. And to think my area is slightly bigger than my sister's. So Saturday last which was January 25, Mang Tony, the guy who fixed our veranda, roofing, and shower, visited to look into converting half of our veranda into a craft room. My side of the room actually opens to the veranda so it's perfect. And the veranda is not so used only the area near the grills where the herbs are. It's going to be a narrow craft room, but it's perfect for me (and for my sister too). So back to Mang Tony, I told him what I wanted to happen and showed him some pictures I got off from the internet as peg for the room. He then proceeded to measure the area, and listed down the materials we'll need. And the labor too. He said that the materials would cost some Php18000 (I'm estimating it's going to cost more like Php25000) and labor would cost Php30000 (for him and 3 more people, working for 7 to 8 days). What do you think? I guess I'm fine with that, I mean I understand the labor and nothing comes cheap nowadays.

So I told him I'd make a decision by Friday, and I'd text him. I'm pretty gung-ho about making this happen and so that same day, or rather night, my sister and I went to CW Home Depot to canvass for the materials, and I said I'd also like to drop-by MC Home Depot and even the neighborhood hardware store to compare prices. I know my neighborhood store would win, btw. But I still wanted to check the Home Depot-s. :)

I have also realized that I didn't have enough money, so maybe, I'd postpone the construction until the last week of Feb or 1st week of March. Yeah, a few bumps this early in the planning stage, but I am still going to make this happen.

I am determined to take my One Little Word - COURAGE - and make things happen for myself.

I will update this blog and plan to document the journey of making a craft room. So wish me luck!

A few pics I got online, again, not my own, for inspiration.

I love the shelves in the pic below, and the long workstation which could hold my printer and my Silhouette.

I'm loving white for the room. So clean.

 This is a better presentation of the room as it's going to be narrow. I also like the window at the end of the room. 

 Another narrow room that helps me visualize the outcome. I like the floor treatment but still need to think of that... Hmm.