Not So Cli-Shéa: Fresh Look Friday!

Danica and I moved into the house that my husband and I call home five years ago this summer. It's crazy to think about because it feels like only yesterday and yet, in those five years so much has happened! Not long after moving in, we invited our friend Stefana to also move in. Danica eventually got engaged and married and moved out. We got another roommate who also eventually moved out. I got engaged and Sam moved in. Then when Sam and I got married Stefana moved out.

Being that it is now our home as the little family that we now are, we have been making little changes and improvements to make it more "us" (who am I kidding, I'm just making it more "me" and he's living with it, haha.).

The latest of these endeavors has been the garage, which, as most know, is lovingly referred to as the "craft cave". For years I have wanted a dream work space to make all of my sewing, hot glue guning and Cricuting dreams come true. I have found, on my search for the perfect space that generally creative spaces are one of two things either beautiful or functional. There are some that are GORGEOUS but everything is so impeccably neat that you really couldn't be creative in the space. Then there is the opposite, where craft supplies are everywhere but its a complete and utter disaster. Why is it so hard for a space to be both? So that became my mission. A space that was both beautiful AND functional. Jen over at Something Turquoise managed to do it, and so would I!

My inspiration was this wallpaper from Anthrolopogy. I've been drooling over it for months (along with many other admirers I'm sure).

Obviously, at $148.00 per roll, it wasn't something I was going to be splurging on anytime soon, HOWEVER, I could still use it as inspiration, right?

First, was finding the perfect wall color. I knew I wanted to find a muted mint color, (after my wedding colors, is it any surprise?) and came across Mischievous by Behr (and who can resist that name, right?).

I only wanted to use the color on one wall so I chose my "display wall".

The way the "craft cave" was built, it was actually added on to an existing two car garage so technically, the wall we painted, at one time, was the exterior wall to the original garage. We didn't know how the stucco would take the paint but the final product ended up actually better than we imagined. (Side note: when I say "we", I am referring to me and my kick ass mom who LOVES a project. She has been my motivator/slave driver through this whole process.)

Before Paint

And After

It's just a slight and yet impactful change.

(Hutch was a $60 Craigslist find.... love me some Craigslist)

While I was doing some sewing my mom styled the hutch for me with some of my wedding decor, it's still a work in progress but loving the direction it's heading in.

At the end of the day it IS still a garage so making it totally beautiful might never be entirely possible, but I'm hopeful.

The next project we tackled after the mint wall was the red shelving on the opposite wall. I'm kicking myself for not getting a good before photo but I dug this one out of the archives from when Danica, my mom and myself very first went to look at the house before we moved in to see if it was something Danica and I were interested in.

Yes, five years ago I had short blonde hair, but more importantly, there is the red shelving.

I had been using it as a catch all for all things garage, like Christmas decorations, old paint, etc.

Since pegboard is an extremely versatile and functional use of space we decided to keep it and mirror the mint wall by painting the pegboard mint as well.

Then it was time for the shelving. Now, the shelving wasn't just wood that was painted red... it was laminate. Red, plastic, laminate. We weren't about to attempt to rip it all off so paint it was the option we opted for.

The Rust-Oleum Universal claims to cover wood, metal, plastic and masonry so it was our best bet. To prevent paint from going everywhere we spent a good chunk of time basically tenting off the paint zone. Now, I haven't seen E.T. probably in over two decades but I feel like it vaguely looked like that scene from the end of the movie where the house was essentially quarantined. If you've ever used spray paint before you know why this was necessary and if you haven't... well, just trust me on this.

Here was the final product. The paint seemed to cover well, we will see how it lasts. A few scratches have already been made and some red has shown through but... it's better than the whole thing being red. Visiting 5 different Walmart's in one day is how I found my collection of storage bins, but wouldn't you know, the right side is an inch smaller than the left, so the hunt for properly sized bins for that side continues. See the white on the ground... yeah... that is where the the plastic didn't quite cover... I'm telling you, spray paint is no joke. Speaking of... because I was in a confined space with the paint, we took major precautions to make sure I wasn't just in a tent of toxic fumes.

I had decided to make curtains to hide the storage and, using my Anthropology inspiration, I found a fun floral pattern that had punches of coral, pastel pink, and of course... GOLD.