From Closet to Office Nook; Guest

Hey There,  I am Robyn from Whimages.


Dear Sweet Cassity, if you blush easily then you may want to avert your eyes or just skip this first paragraph.


As I'm sure many of you have discovered, the bloggity world is full of super sweet and lovely people.  Cassity however, is a shining GEM of a blogger and a lady. I like to think of her as the FAIRY BLOGMOTHER.  She has shown us so many wonderful blogs that we may not have found on our own PLUS she herself has the most delightful ideas that she shares in order to make our homes a happier, prettier place.  Let us NOT forget her generous heart and the give aways that she often has had.  On that note, I'd like to THANK Cassity for asking me if she could show you all my little NOOK.  I am completely HONORED and so excited to share it with you!

A few years after we moved into our home, in desperation to eek out a bit more space in our family room for the TV and some storage for the growing amount of STUFF that our three kids seemed to accumulate, we had an epiphany.  It dawned on us that our family room was NEXT to our garage and the wall separating the two was non weight bearing.  MEANING, hey we could grab a little bit of space from the garage and make a built in entertainment center. 

My father, being a licensed contractor at the time, built a header (that's like a beam that distributes weight across an area) and we popped through to the garage!  

Meanwhile, in the basement, we had wonderful and GORGEOUS mahogany trim and wood pieces that my father and Matt had rescued from a very classy gentleman's cigar bar in Baltimore that was demolished. The lovely molding above our fireplace is reclaimed from there as well. We used 3 pieces of that molding (the two exterior side pieces and the top pediment) to trim it out.  In the center we had our TV and on either side open shelving and under the TV, we had a set of shelves covered with doors we had made.

This worked wonderfully for many years until TVs became about as thick as a piece of card stock.  Now with the new super slim TV, we decided we no longer needed the entertainment center and our children weren't requiring so much space for their STUFF (naked barbies, hundreds of matchbox cars...you get the picture).  Matt tore out the entertainment center and used all the pieces to make a NEW TV stand (which really isn't a stand because the TV is mounted on the wall but ...). The ONLY thing we purchased for it were the new hardware for the doors.  Talk about reuse, reduce, re-put that money back in your wallet!

For several months, we had a hole in our family room wall with mismatched paint (sage green from several years back) and drywall tape as it's only decoration.  We could NOT decide on what to do with the HOLE IN THE WALL.  (Actually we couldn't agree but that's another story).  


Finally Matt drew a plan (it really was like the 7th one) and it just CLICKED.  We had our BUILT IN DESK AND READING NOOK!

I just want to tell you a little bit about some of the things in the nook.  First of all, it's not quite finished...it gets a little bit more trim, some paint here and there, shelves in the super cool built in in a built in and also poly on the floor.  


Matt has cut a 5 out of wood (that's our family number) for me to distress and that still needs to get done and hung. Look for a tutorial about that in the near future on my blog.  Hopefully, sometime this summer I'm going to paint a Robin on a branch above the built in in a built in, I already sketched it out.  

All of the photos in the nook were taken by me and most of them have some type of meaning or we just like them.  The architectural piece above the one wall of photos is from a friends store.  We stay with her at the beach, so it reminds us of our wonderful beach memories.  


The 2 larger boxes are family heirlooms on Matt's side.  The little cracker box is from one of my favorite antique stores.  There is a curlicue flower frog on top of the scale.  I have a small collection of flower frogs and I've been looking for that kind forever!  


I think Mercury Glass is gorgeous, my father purchased us the mercury glass pendant and I love how it goes with the votive and the candle holder (that's too tall to hold a candle!)  


Last but not least, there is a school bell that was Matt's great uncle's, Matt taught school for 13 years and still works for the board of education.  There is a little grey reproduction comb holder that holds our pens and Matt fell in love with this school teachers chair/attorney chair at an antique store.  When we saw a similar one at Pottery Barn for 399.00, we knew that 70.00 was a bargain!  


The reading bench lifts up for storage and it was our first experience with upholstery. It's covered in a 5.00 plastic backed drop cloth! If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask me. My email is robynlbedsaul@comcast.net.  I hope you enjoy the photos of the NOOK.  


We are in love with it and I think it might be our favorite project to date! ...and that's saying something!

 

 

 

Isn't that just THE MOST BEAUTIFUL little nook?  

I love the way it looks how light and airy it is, with great function too- PERFECT!

BTW, Robyn, you are so sweet!  I am honestly touched.  

Robyn has been a good friend to me for a while now, it seems like she was one of my first readers and I so appreciate her kindness and hanging in here through all my awkward blogging stages.  She has not had it easy lately and I am so impressed with all she accomplishes anyway!  Thanks!