Things got real yesterday. After talking about my studio, making plans, changing plans, and weighing the various ideas and possibilities for literally years, the time has finally come to actually get things done. I came home from lunch with my mom and brother yesterday, and guess what was sitting on my orange front porch!
Those are all of my IKEA cabinets that I ordered for the studio. As soon as I drove up and saw those, things got real. I can no longer stay stuck in the studio planning stage indefinitely. After dragging it out for years, that stage is finally over. Now it’s time to actually put a plan into action.
I wasn’t really sure what to expect with this order. The IKEA order confirmation said that everything would come in 25 packages. Ummm…that’s not 25 packages. That’s 71 packages! ?
Each cabinet carcass comes in a box, each pair of shelves comes in a package, and each individual drawer front and cabinet door comes in an individual package. And then each pair of hinges comes in an individual package. So if we count the hinges, that means that 83 packages were delivered to my front door yesterday.
It took me a while to find a place to store everything for the next few days, bring all of the packages inside, and then take inventory of everything to be sure that my complete order was delivered. And much to my amazement, every single item I ordered was delivered. That’s a pretty amazing feat! I have to admit that I was impressed with that. With an order consisting of 83 individual packages, I expected at least one mistake, but there were none. I have yet to open all of the packages and make sure everything arrived in good condition, but things seem to be packaged well, so I’m not expecting any problems.
Anyway, all of that to say that as of today, my awful orange front porch has to be put on the back burner. I’m on a tight time schedule because right now all of the cabinets are currently stacked in the living room and entryway, and they all have to be out of there by next Wednesday since we host a group from our church every Wednesday night.
For the next week, my focus is going to be repainting the ceiling and walls in the main part of the room (i.e, not the back entry yet, since that area doesn’t affect the cabinets), and then cleaning, prepping, and painting the studio floor. The room is huge with a high ceiling, so it’s going to be a really big job. But I do need to paint the ceiling and walls before I do the floor.
And speaking of the studio floor, I’ve narrowed down the design options to these two…
I’m having a hard time deciding between those two, but I still have a couple of days before I have to make a final decision. If I were forced to choose right this minute, I’d probably go with the floor from The Winsome Nest. It’s simple and classic, and I think it would look great in the room.
And I’ve also made a decision on the cabinet color. I’m going with this one…
If you’ve been following this decision-making process, this is Option 3 lightened. (You can see the other options on this post.) Of course, once I get the actual wallpaper in hand, I might have to make some tweaks to that color. But what I learned through this process is that I like the color just a bit on the brighter side rather than the grayed, toned down side. But I also don’t like it too bright and saturated. There’s a fine line there for me, so finding that sweet spot may require some trial and error.
I made the cabinet color decision while standing in my kitchen where I could see the living room, breakfast room (sitting room) and studio all at the same time. So this was kind of like this view, except that when I’m standing in the actual room, I can obviously see much more of these rooms.
But I love the idea of the pinkish colors carrying through from the pink living room curtains, to the magenta breakfast room curtains, and then to the studio cabinets. I think the rooms will flow together nicely, and I think that color will look great with the painted floor.
So it’s time to put all other projects aside for a while, and finally get busy on the studio. It’s the room I know a lot of you have been waiting for for a very long time now. I’m right there with you, so it’ll be amazing to finally see some progress on this room!
Addicted 2 Decorating is where I share my DIY and decorating journey as I remodel and decorate the 1948 fixer upper that my husband, Matt, and I bought in 2013. Matt has M.S. and is unable to do physical work, so I do the majority of the work on the house by myself. You can learn more about me here.
I hope you’ll join me on my DIY and decorating journey! If you want to follow my projects and progress, you can subscribe below and have each new post delivered to your email inbox. That way you’ll never miss a thing!
