ORC Week 3: Starting Built-in Storage for my Loft Studio

It's Week 3 of the One Room Challenge and so far I've laid new flooring and hung wallpaper and new lighting. We spent last week on a road trip to visit my two eldest nieces at their colleges and enjoy some fall leaves so I didn't make a lot of progress on my Loft Studio for this week's update. I did start working on my built-in storage, however. I already owned two 8 drawer Hemnes dressers so my plan is to modify them to look built-in.

Since I'm planning to use 3-1/4" tall baseboard in the room I started by cutting down the dresser legs so that I'd have a 3/4" reveal under the bottom row of drawers. To avoid any tear out I taped up the legs with some painter's tape before cutting them with my circular saw. This would have been much easier to do with the dressers unassembled, but I didn't feel like taking them apart.

I wanted the dresser to sit flush against the wall so next I trimmed down the right side of the top, scribing it to the wall.

Since nothing in my 140+ year house is plumb or square, it turns out that I had a gap between the sloped ceiling and the back of the dresser on the right side so I cut a filler piece and tacked it on the back. Once it is caulked and painted it should look seamless.

My plan is to add a bookcase with paper storage on the end of the dresser so I needed to add some filler pieces to make everything work. To extend the top I ripped down a portion of the top that I previously cut off from the right side. For the filler piece along the side I used a 1x3 and attached it with pocket holes from the back.

While I was sliding the drawers into the frame I swapped out the knobs that came with the dresser for some fun brass ring pulls. I think they really elevate the dresser.

Even though I am far from done, I couldn't resist setting out a few of my storage items including a vintage ceramic toast holder that I'm using to store quilting templates and a blue glass jar from Belgium that stores my Sharpies.

Next up I need to replicate the same process for the second dresser on the opposite side. I also plan to build the bookcases to go at the end of the dressers and then I can install the baseboard. Hopefully I'll make good progress this weekend!

ORC Week 2: Wallpaper and Lighting for my Loft Studio

With the tedious job of installing new flooring complete in my Loft Studio, I turned my attention to adding some wallpaper and new lighting to the space for Week 2 of the One Room Challege. This loft space overlooks my bedroom so I decided not to paint the sloped ceiling because it extends to the bedroom and the color already works well for that space. I did decide to have a little fun and add some color and pattern on the back wall with wallpaper since that won't be visible from my bedroom.

I wanted something that was fun but not overpowering and when I saw this Navy Saybrook wallpaper I thought it was perfect. To me it looks like a modernized version of waves from a Japanese Edo-era painting, like Kuniyoshi's "Life of Nichiren: A Vision of Prayer on the Waves". I'm a Senior Engineering Manager at Toyota R&D and have been lucky enough to live in Japan and visit over twenty times in my career so I thought this was a nice subtle nod to that part of my life.

This wallpaper is peel and stick so it was really easy to install. Normally with wallpaper you start in a corner but with this triangular wall I thought it made sense to center the first strip in the middle of the wall. The wallpaper is 20.5" wide so I used my 4 ft. level to mark a plumb line 10.25" from the center. I then peeled off the backing a little at a time and hung the first piece aligned to my pencil line. Once the first piece was in place it was straightforward to hang the rest of the wall paper making sure that the pattern matched at the seams. When I was done I used my utility knife to cut the excess along the ceiling. 

To make the wallplates for the switches and outlets on the wall to disappear I also covered them with wallpaper. I cut out a piece of wallpaper that matched the area a few inches wider than the wallplate. I then held the wallplate in place against the wall and then aligned the wallpaper piece to match the wall pattern and pressed it to the wallplate until it stuck. I cut the excess wallpaper off, leaving about 3/8" and then folded the edges around the wallplate. After cutting out the switch openings it was ready to install. I love that with the pattern of the wallpaper the switches and outlets almost disappear.

With the wallpaper hung it was time to move on to lighting. It took me a little while to find the right sconces because with the slope of the wall they can't be too wide or too tall. I thought brass would look nice against the blue and white wallpaper and finally settled on a pair of brass sconces with white milk glass globes by Elk Lighting. They were straightforward to install and I'm really happy with how they look.

Several of the things that I ordered online have started to arrive, like my yellow desk chairs, and I am excited to see the space start shaping up. Next up, I will be starting on the built-ins along the sides... 

ORC Week 1: Plans for my Loft Studio (Plus Laying New Flooring)

I have a tendency (which my husband hates!) of starting and not finishing house projects. To spur myself on, I thought I'd join the One Room Challenge this year as a guest participant. My hope is that with a deadline I'll not only begin but also actually complete transforming my attic loft space into a craft studio. I've got a lot of ambitious plans that I'm doing myself but I always like a challenge.

Back when I first bought my home in 2007 and renovated the main part of the house I created my bedroom by combining two small bedrooms and lofting the ceiling. While I was at it I created a loft attic space that overlooks the bedroom in the space above the upstairs bathroom, hallway and closet. It’s a great bonus space but it’s sat unused all these years. Recently I decided to finally make use of the space and use it to create a craft studio for myself. Here is the space as it looked at the beginning of September.

It's bland at the moment, but I think it has a lot of potential. At 18' x 13' it's a generous size but I need to be creative in laying things out since the sloped ceiling and attic ladder restrict things. My plan for the loft studio is to create a space with a lot of storage, a nice sized work space and a cozy reading nook. I've never made a mood board before since I'm generally someone who evolves spaces over time, but it was fun.

1. Sconce | 2. Paper Storage | 3. Drawer Pulls | 4. Vintage Fabric | 5. Wallpaper | 6. Dresser | 7. Drawer Unit | 8. Desk Chair | 9. Flooring | 10. Armchair | 11. Ottoman | 12. Vintage Rug | 13. Vintage Storage Jars | 14. Dresser

To start I'm adding new flooring (9) with some fun wallpaper (5) on the back wall and new lighting (1) with a pretty vintage Turkish rug (12) to anchor the space. Right now there isn't a railing around the attic ladder opening, so I plan to build a guard rail but I'm still contemplating the design. I'm going to use two dressers (14) that I already own to create built-ins along the side walls and then also build some custom bookcases and integrate paper storage (2) into them. To create a workspace I plan to modify another dresser (6) as part of the desk and will tuck extra drawer units (7) underneath for more storage. I picked cheerful yellow chairs (8) for desk seating and a large comfy blue armchair (10) and ottoman (11) for the reading nook, with pillows I'll make from some vintage fabric (4). For some finishing touches I'm upgrading the hardware on the dressers with brass ring pulls (3) and have a few vintage ceramic jars for visible storage (13).  I'm sure as I get into things my plan will change, but this is what I'm thinking right now.

I got a jump on the space in mid-September by getting rid of the cheap carpeting I had installed 13 years ago and putting in some new flooring. I used a utility knife to cut the carpet and pad into manageable sized pieces and then rolled them up, securing them with twine. My husband helped me out by lugging the rolled up pieces down to the garage for me. Thank you, Frank!

Next up was the tedious job of removing all of the carpet pad staples and carpet tack strips. I used pliers to attack the staples and a small pry bar to pull up the tack strips. Working along the back wall was quick work but where the ceiling met the ground was the worst since I had to crouch or lay on my side to fit.

After all the staples and tack strips were removed, I was back to bare plywood subfloor and ready to lay down the underlayment which creates a moisture and sound barrier for the flooring. The underlayment I bought had a grid pattern on it which made it easy to cut to size with a utility knife and a straight edge. After I laid each piece I taped the seams creating a seal.

With the prep work done it was finally time to lay flooring. My house is 140+ years old so I chose to have hardwood and tile in the rest of the house since those floorings are fitting with the age of the house. This is an attic space, however, and not wanting to spend the time and expense of laying hardwood I settled on Memphis Light Oak laminate flooring. Another added benefit of the laminate is that it is only 8mm thick which is nice in a room where headroom is at a premium.

Laying the laminate was pretty easy and much less time consuming than hardwood because it is a floating floor. As with any flooring getting the first row perfect was important to prevent any issues in laying subsequent rows. I decided to install the flooring perpendicular to the back wall for a few reasons. My flooring joists run parallel to the back wall so this installation orientation allows the flooring to be perpendicular to the joists. Aesthetically, it makes for less busy sight lines and is in the same direction as the natural light source coming from the windows in my bedroom. Finally, with the way the ceiling slopes at the sides, installing it parallel to the back wall would have caused me to have to leave a large space along the side walls because some clearance is needed during installation to angle the planks and to click in place.  

Installation was pretty straightforward, just angle the tongue of the plank into the groove of the previous row and click in place. To close the gap with the adjacent piece, I used a scrap piece as a tapping block to prevent damaging the tongue and hammered until the joint was tight. For the last plank of a row I used a puller bar to get the joints tight.

Not having to use a flooring nailer combined with the laminate being much wider than the 2-1/4" hardwood flooring that I have in the rest of my house made this a much quicker job than installing hardwood. The most time consuming thing was that to make my end cuts I had to run down two flights of stairs and out to my garage to use my miter saw since I didn't want to bring it inside and create a lot of saw dust. I used my circular saw and jigsaw to make the cuts around the attic ladder opening and heating vent.

I noticed two things that I had to be careful of that weren't really a factor when laying hardwood. Since the floor is floating, if you don't have wall spacers when you tap your planks in place it is easy for the planks to move and hit the wall, eliminating your expansion gap. Secondly, after a only a handful of hits with the hammer the laminate tapping block starts to shred so I needed to replace it every few rows of flooring. It was important to keep sweeping up the splintered off pieces to make sure that the underlayment didn't have any debris on it when adding new planks.

Laying the final rows were the worst because of the cramped headroom. I had to rip down the last row on my table saw to get them to fit and then had to lay on my side while tapping in the pieces. I was quite happy when it was done and I think the result is a nice blank space to create a functional and pretty craft studio.

Next up is wallpaper and new lighting!