DIY Door Couch

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I've been slowly adding details to our new craft and kid rec room. We have many areas of our room and one area that I am concentrating on now is the sitting area. This room is a space where I envision my kids and I creating and hanging out together.

I had this idea for a couple years now. So I was glad I finally had the space to finally do it. :) With the help of my handy hubby we created our own Door Couch just for this space!

I have a lot of old doors. I love them. I see one and want to take them home. LOL I scored some very cheap doors a couple years which turned out to be about a $2 a piece. That is a big bargain on old doors!

For the construction of the couch, we used 3 doors. One of the doors my hubby cut down in half to make the sides.

To attach it all together, we used pieces of scrap wood, mostly 2x4's.

We screwed one on the back.

And a couple pieces on the sides. These pieces are what the bottom door will sit on. It provides enough support for the weight of the door and people to actually sit on it.

We also put a piece of scrap wood in each corner on the inside for more support.

We then screwed all the doors together.

We purposely set the back door up a little bit to have a more 'couch' look.

I painted the door an off white. See, you don't see all the scrap wood when it's all painted and put together.

The actual couch construction, including the mattress box spring was free to make for us. These were items we had hanging around the house. The pillows I used were pillows I had all around the house as well. :)

The expenses I had was a piece of foam to go over the box spring, the cream blanket, pillow cases and fabric.

Painting the door was very quick to do actually. I love the distressed and worn look, so I purposely painted not a 100% of the surface. I didn't even have to sand or use stain to give it an aged look. The old doors had a wonderful old and crackly surface to start with.

I even left the door knob on.

And some hinges.

This room is our bright and cheery room. If you remember, I let my 8 year old pick the vivid turquoise wall color. Accent colors in the space are red, green, and yellow.

I used affordable pillow cases from Wal-Mart for the standard size pillows I had.

I also had pillow forms that I scored for $1 at a garage sale (They came from a clean house and pre bed bug scares...). So I splurged on some fun fabrics at Hobby Lobby. And yes, don't fall over, I sewed some envelope pillow covers for them! There was a lot of cussing, but I did it and I'm so proud of myself! If you know me, I don't sew.

We just love our new couch! Who knew how easy it was to create some furniture on a budget?!!

Just a few more details to finish to reveal the entire room to you. Stay tuned!

Linking up HERE

Art Display Board

I have been busy adding to the details of our kid/craft room. My hubby has been an excellent helper as well. He helped me a great deal with this project I'm going to share with you today.

We had a large art display board in our mudroom area. Well now since the current mudroom makeover, we needed to move it to another area of the room.

The downside of our new craft room is 2 cement walls. The 'perfect' spot for the peg board was on a cement wall of course. :) I wasn't too keen on drilling a bunch of holes in the wall and neither was my hubby. So we decided to adhere the peg board the the wall using 1x4's.

We figured out the placement of the pegboard and we placed 1x4 wood pieces around the perimeter and also a couple in the middle.

We used Power Grab Molding and Paneling Adhesive. It is great stuff!

We allowed the adhesive to dry overnight before we added the peg board.

Before we attached the peg board to the 1x4 boards, we added plastic clothespins to the holes. These clothespins are actually magnets that I found at Office Max. They already had a predrilled hole in the back. So it was easy to add a screw to thread through the holes.

These clothespins were also clear when I bought them. I spray painted them with a primer and then a textured black paint.

To attach to the back, we add small washers.

We could of easily used peg board hooks, but I loved the look and function of the clothespins better.

We attached the peg board to the 1x4's using screws.

Now we could of been done after this but I wanted to add some trim to cover up the edge of the 1x4's peaking through the sides.

I went to my local salvage center and found 24 feet of lovely thick old molding for only $5!

I didn't even have to paint it. I love the chippiness and crackle of the old paint. We attached the old molding directly on the cement wall using the same Adhesive above.

And I didn't even bother to fill in the corners with spackling. I love seeing the mitered corners to match the imperfection of the old wood trim.

So with a little team work, we have a wonderful diplay board ready to fill with our boys' art.

Did you see our oops? It doesn't bother me now...but imagine my disappointment when I brought this lovely wide trim home to realize we calculated enough room between the peg board and ceiling for thinner trim. And the 1x4's were already glued on the wall. LOL I had no intention for the trim to bud up against the ceiling like that. And yes, the trim is exactly 5 inches wide, just enough space to squeeze in there. :)

So keep that in mind when you are shopping for all your supplies to allow room for everything. I just fell in love that trim so much that I couldn't pass it up!

When I originally did this peg board a couple years or so ago, I originally got it unfinished at our local home improvement store. Stores carry many different sizes, I really liked the 4 foot x 4 foot size. I painted the whole piece red and then added the white stripes using painter's tape. I also stenciled my boys' initials and some stars on it as well. I then sanded it all down and then added MinWax dark walnut stain to richin' it up a bit.

 Our boys love arts and crafts (my 4 year finally caught the craft bug a couple months ago), so this space is going to be filled with creations and imagination for years to come.

Do you have a fun space to display your child's art?

Stay tuned for more craft room projects...

Kindra

Linking up HERE

Craft Room Peak

We have one room in our house that used to be a real embarrassment! It's a partially unfinished room in our basement that I mostly used for crafts. It is also the first room that we walk into our house from the garage. So we put up this door wall to divide the room for an unofficial mudroom entrance and to block off the craft mess. :)

The half painted floor was driving me nuts as well. Whenever I came home, it felt like a big DIY project slapping me in the face every time I would come home. Not a good feeling to greet me.

 Behind the doors is my craft area. I used to do craft fairs for several years so this space was perfect to create. I no longer do craft fairs...so the room was becoming a dumping ground with thrift finds and extra decor. Very embarrassing. LOL

So a few weeks ago, I said enough was enough! We cleared the room out. Now my garage is full and my husband can't park in there now... :)

But the room looks so much better and bigger with everything removed and the door wall down. Our boys had fun playing around in the big open space!

Our boys were also our big helpers for the day. They helped us clean the walls and floor for painting and floor prep.

We cleaned everything with, what else...Basic H2! Love this stuff!

This room is going to now be a kid rec room and craft room. My son got to pick the color. Vivid Turquoise! Him and his brother are so excited for their new room!

 So here it is today!

We still have many more details to finish in the room. But this is what is keeping us busy these days. The floor is almost done, just a little to finish close to the walls.

Do you have a craft or kid room? Got any clever organizing ideas for all the supplies and toys?

Craft Clean Up

Sorry I've been MIA lately. I decided to tackle the mess piled in my craft room. It was turning into the the catch all room. So on Tuesday, I introduced my 3 year to Moon Sand (a parent's curse but kids love!) and I went on the organization/purge train while he played away.

Today I can actually see the countertops and floor! But when you clean up one mess, then you tend to create piles of other messes...at least for me anyway. So there's still lots to do down there! And that doesn't even include decorating the space to make it look pretty to create in. I'm blessed to have such a great place to work but it's a basement with no windows...so it needs a little sprucing up!

If you are like me, I try to find easy and cheap ways to organize. And yesterday I found the cutest containers to organize my boys' craft area. Why not visit the garden area at your local home improvement store? I found these cute colorful plastic pots for $1.25 each at Menards. Great for keeping the art supplies all in one place. I drilled a hole on the side for easy hanging on a chicken wire frame. They can easily be removed so you can have the container by your side for easier reach.

Got any fun and simple ways to keep clutter under control?