Home Office Ideas & Craft Room Makeover (2024)

As I sit here typing, I keep getting distracted by all the pretty.

It’s taken a lot of planning, designing, mind changing, organizing, DIYing and a little bit of shopping, but today I’m finally ready to share my home office and craft room makeover.

Pinch me: I can’t believe I finally have a creative workspace that’s all girly and gorgeous — and all me.

There are a lot of details and projects I want to share in this room, but I’m going to shut up as much as possible as I give you the grand tour.

There will be plenty of posts later for me to walk you through each and every project. (For my entire home office and craft room makeover series, click here.)

I’m thrilled to be part of this amazing virtual tour of craft rooms and spaces, coordinated by my friend Angie of The Country Chic Cottage. I’m the last stop on today’s tour, and welcome to all of you who are coming over from Uncommon Designs,Marty’s Musingsor one of the other blogs participating in the tour. For the week’s full line up, visit The Country Chic Cottage.

Now, on with my tour.

I’m self-employed, so I’m lucky enough to have a room all my own, which also doubles as my craft room. It’s a big space with good bones and I invested in a nice desk and a comfy chair several years ago. But I’d never been happy with the look or the function of the space. Here’s a little glimpse at what it looked like before:

Bland. Boring. A little bit junky. Lacking in functional storage. No functional dedicated space for crafting. Uninspiring with no cohesive color scheme. It was a hodgepodge room, furnished with a desk from my old office, a giant lateral filing cabinet from our old shared home office, an armoire from my single days and a too-small craft table.

The first thing I did was ditch the lateral file cabinet and toss a bunch of old, useless files. I put those I needed to save in storage in the attic, and pared down to a single file box for current projects. Getting rid of the filing cabinet gave me the space I needed to add more storage in the room — two Ikea Hemnes bookcases.

I also sold a small writing desk that I had been using as a craft table and replaced it with an Ikea Ingatorp drop-leaf table.

It’s small enough that it doesn’t overwhelm the room (especially if I drop down the sides) but large enough and deep enough for me to spread my supplies and my projects.

Before, my craft supplies were spread throughout the house. Some things I kept in the craft room, but others I stored in the guest bedroom closet or attic or the laundry room.

With this makeover, I’ve made a conscious effort to wrangle most of my craft supplies into this room and designate a space for them, either on the bookcases or in the storage closet right off the room. (I’m planning to show up an update of that closet soon.)

I wanted to have my paint and glue and tape and ribbon and washi tape other craft supplies at hand. So, I put them in jars and matching storage boxes, flower pots and coffee mugs, wooden boxes and paper bins…

and Mason jars and magazine files and baskets. Everything in its place, but also everything close at hand. Some I bought specifically for the makeover but others I already owned.

I had to mix in a little pretty here and there, like this watercolor by a local artist. Pink and green and shoes: that’s pretty much all you need to know about me. I love pretty and girly, girly.

I ditched my old ribbon storage rack and DIY’d my own using this wrought iron birdcagefrom World Market. It keeps my craft ribbon close at hand in style. (Stay tuned for details on how I made over the store-bought shelf and also how I created this vibrant wall art from a thrift store find that my husband described as “hideous.”)

And speaking of makeovers, my pine armoire that seems to get painted every time I decide to clean up or organize my office got a new coat of paint — Larchmere by Sherwin-Williams to match the turquoise in my inspiration fabric for the room.

I bought this armoire unfinished from JCPenney about 10 years ago to use as a TV cabinet. But when we moved into this house, it became a storage piece for my office. The doors got broken and have been repurposed elsewhere in the house. I contemplated selling it and replacing it, but I realized all it really needed was a makeover — nothing a little paint couldn’t fix. It’s also the perfect place to hide (in plain sight) my gargantuan printer (this is a working office after all), my stamp pads and my burgeoning fabric and home decor ribbon stash. (And I love that the shape mimics the shape of the pagoda in my fabric.)

Plus I have all kinds of keepsakes, projects and goodies stored in those archival boxes from The Container Store. (They got a paint makeover too. Originally blue, I used leftover Sherwin-Williams Intellectual Gray paint from the powder room makeover so they would match the new color scheme.)

This whole makeover started taking shape when I saw this gorgeous fabric, Braemore Emperor’s Garden Blossom on another blog.

Swoon! It was love at first sight.

My friends at OnlineFabricStore.net generously provided me with the yardage I would need for my window treatments. And my talented friend, Suzy of Worthing Court, spent two days with me making this gorgeous cornice.

I cannot take any credit for the window treatment. Suzy made it, while I nattered on and cut fabric and ran to get us food and did other basic tasks that didn’t require use of a sewing machine or power tools. I am beyond grateful for her time and beautiful work, and I owe her big time. (Suzy has a great two-part tutorial for how to make a cornice; this is the same technique she used for mine.)

While I didn’t do much hands-on work on the cornice, I did transform this faux bamboo caned chair. The fabric is Premier Prints Gotcha in Candy Pink, also from OnlineFabricStore.

Of all the projects I did for the room, this bulletin board and art piece might be my favorite. The fabric is Braemore Secret Gate in Blossom. I bought mine locally, but you’ll find similar versions from Pindler & Pindler and Robert Allen at OnlineFabricStore. I’m pretty sure the fabric is milled at the same place, just marketed and sold under different manufacturers’ names.

I’ll be sharing the how-to for this project, plus the exact source for the botanicals later this week. (Hint, they were free from The Graphics Fairy!)

Since the big bulletin board is mainly decorative, I made a smaller functional one to hang on the side of my armoire from an old frame and Moroccan trellis quilting fabric in the perfect shade of turquoise. (Yes, I am the Pinterest queen. I have the crown to prove it.)

That turquoise color turned out to be the hardest thing to match in the entire room. Aqua is everywhere, but my color has more green in it than most, so I was forced to use pink and gray for my accessories.

Many of the office supplies came from the Dollar Spot at Target.

I was able to pull in a few of my vintage pottery pieces, as well.

I made over a clearance desk lamp to match my color scheme.

I did the same with a Goodwill faux bamboo lamp for my craft table. A little paint, trim and a tassel, and I made it work, to paraphrase Tim Gunn.

As much as I love my new craft room and home office — and boy do I love it — I’m still not completely finished with it.

I am still on the hunt for the perfect chandelier, since my original choice ended up being too big for the space. I also would like to get a rug some day. What do you think of layering rugs over carpet?

I originally also planned to paint the backs of the bookcases, but I couldn’t decide which color. What do you think? Paint them? If so, what color? Or leave them as is?

Thanks so much for stopping by to tour my craft room. I’m off to create something in this amazing space, but I did want to share my sources for the makeover. If you have questions about anything you see in this room, email me and I’m happy to answer.

Wall Color: Wordly Gray by Sherwin-Williams
Armoire Color: Larchmere by Sherwin-Williams
Bookcases: Ikea Hemnes
Craft Table: Ikea Ingatorp
Craft Chair: Yard sale find, painted Annie Sloan Chalk Paint Old White
Desk: Portofino Collection by Stanley Furniture (no longer available)
Desk chair: Total Bliss, Greensboro, N.C.
Gray storage boxes: Ikea Kvarnik
Pink magazine files: Ikea Kassett
Mason jar ceramic vases: World Market
Ribbon Storage: Wrought Iron Shelf Birdcagefrom World Market
Gray magazine files and archival storage and project boxes: The Container Store
Chair fabric: Premier Prints Gotcha in Candy Pink from OnlineFabricStore.net
Cornice Fabric: Braemore Emperor’s Garden Blossom from OnlineFabricStore.net
Pink Bulletin Board Fabric: Braemore Secret Garden Blossom from Printer’s Alley
Turquoise trellis bulletin board fabric: Hobby Lobby
Desk Lamp & Shade: Target
Office supplies: Target Dollar Spot
Chalkboard mug: World Market
Baskets on bookcase: Target Seagrass Folio (Avaialable in store only)
Baskets in armoire: Michaels
Shadowbox frames: Ikea Ribba
Glittered bird & flower magnet: Miss Mustard Seed at Lucketts Market
Botanical Prints: The Graphics Fairy
Stamp pad storage: eBay

Disclosure: OnlineFabricStore.net provided me with a gift card to purchase fabric for this makeover. Post contains affiliate links. Read my full disclosure policy here.