Lofty Goals

Several months ago I made a comment to a friend when she asked to see the upstairs in our house. I told her it was a mess but it didn't matter too much because we never go up there. The loft is unusable, the guest room is just a guest room, and Brennan only sleeps in his room, so we really have no need to go up there.

Well, after my friend left that night and I headed up to put Brennan to bed, I started thinking how ridiculous it was to not use an entire floor of our house! Then, several weeks later, just by chance, Brennan made the move to his new room and his big boy bed, and I began working on turning his nursery into a guest room. The rooms are now functional, but that's all. Over the next weeks and months, I hope to transform Brennan's big boy room into a really special place. I also want to make a few small changes to the guest room that I will blog about some day, too. But today's focus is the loft.

I have been frustrated with our loft since the day I moved in. I want a beautiful, comfortable studio for crafting, but I have to share the space with all of Jim's computer stuff. There have been several specific obstacles standing in the way of me creating a beautiful, functional space:

The sofaIn our old house we had a formal living room, and in it, a formal parlor-style sofa that had belonged to Jim's grandmother. I initially hated the sofa, but its lines and shape grew on me and I eventually came to love it after I had it recovered. Well, our rental house is much smaller than our old house, and there is only one place to put our family treasure: right smack-dab in the middle of my work space. This would not be such a bad thing since it is pretty and girly, except for the fact that it takes up a much-needed wall. Why is it a much-needed wall? Because of obstacle number two:

The server cabinetOh, how I loathe this thing. It's big, it's ugly, and it's in the way. What is it, you may ask? (You will only ask if you aren't one of Jim's techno-geek friends.) It is a cabinet for housing the computer servers Jim runs here in our house. Without it, the servers are insanely loud (as in, I can't hear people on the phone when I'm across the room from them). With it, I can't decorate. It has to go in a certain space because it needs particular jacks and ports and things I don't understand. It has to lay flat because it opens up for access to the servers. And it has to be silver and ugly because men who love these things do not have women like me in mind.

The heatThe excessive heat that comes from all of Jim's computer equipment is bad enough, but add to that the fact that we live in a house with more than two dozen windows (trust me, it's a lot of windows), and the loft is blazing hot every day except in the dead of winter. It does not inspire me to create great things, other than ice cold lemonade.

The deskThe corner (L-shaped) desk belonged to Jim and was in his bedroom growing up. I am not a big fan of the wood, and sometimes the shape can be a pain to work with. In this case, it works out fine because it makes use of our limited wall space, but it isn't a good desk for crafting. I need a lot of surface area and places to spread out.
 

So, what do you do when faced with these kinds of challenges? Work around them! (Literally!)

The first, revolutionary step was figuring out that a large folding table fits over the server cabinet, allowing me some space to work and, just as importantly, a way to hide the cabinet. The second step was finding fabric to coordinate with the sofa. This was a very difficult task. I have been looking for fabric to coordinate with that sofa for almost five years. Lucky for me, I finally found some, completely by chance!  (I was looking for something else when I found it.)  This awesome striped fabric coordinates with the colors in the sofa, while bringing a slightly more whimsical look to the room. (Who wants a stuffy craft studio?)

From this fabulous fabric I have made a table skirt to hide the server cabinet, as well as matching curtains.  I also took a piece of fabric left over from the sofa and covered the opening on the desk (where the chair goes) so I can use it as extra storage.  

Now I have just a few things left to do and I will have a great space. I need to hang pretty things on the walls, install a ceiling fan (Jim has checked, and the wiring is all set), and find a way to organize Brennan's toys so he can play upstairs while I work. The last step is my responsibility, but the other two tasks fall on Jim (trust me, you don't want me putting holes in the wall of a rental). I also need to finish the bottom of the table skirt.  It is unfinished and fraying because I couldn't get it quite long enough without buying more fabric, and it isn't cheap fabric.  I have a few tricks up my sleeve, but I still need to decide what I want to do. 

Hopefully this project will get wrapped up soon so that I can move on to other things! I will post before and after pictures when I finally get done. In the mean time, I am pleased to say that I have started using the loft to create some beautiful things, and our upstairs is no longer a useless part of our house!