Who Needs a Dining Room Anyway?

I've been busy with a new project this week. It's been brewing in my mind since I read this post by Jodie about her atelier. (I have NO IDEA what that fancy word really means, so I'm just gonna call it a craft room.) I decided I am tired of having one-fourth of our first floor living space blocked off because it's full of family heirlooms and breakables. And I was tired of all our craft supplies being stored in a jam-packed kitchen cabinet where we couldn't find anything at all.

Just the other night, Katie had homework to do and I told her to find a pencil in her craft cabinet. She opened it and a stack of papers fell out onto her, and I gave up. I went to Wal-Mart and just bought her a new pack of pencils instead of having to dig through the chaos to find one we already had.

It's time to change, y'all. Who needs a dining room anyway? It's silly to have that entire room gated off just so I can use it once a year IF we host a holiday dinner with my extended in-laws. So I boxed up all the silver and crystal and moved it to the basement. We moved the heirloom dining room chairs to the attic in favor of "trashable" folding chairs. Then I boxed up some other stuff I haven't used in years and donated it. (And, never fear, my friends and family. The awesome portrait of my brother has been moved to the upstairs hallway. It did NOT go into storage. Perish the thought!)

Here's what the room looked like before. I'm kind of embarrassed to show it to you because it looks so messy and junky. But, remember, this was my "safe room" (or my staging area, as my friend Michelle likes to call her dining room too), and I kept things on the table that I didn't want the kids to touch. And then I locked the door and reinforced the baby gate and kept everyone OUT. So... here are the before shots:

Wednesday was a half day of school for Katie. When Jackson went down for his nap, she and I set to work on boxing the heirlooms and clearing out space. We had to take a break at one point so I could explain to her why Grandmama was inside the china cabinet (her cremains, y'all... not "her"). That was a tear-jerker conversation to have with my six-year-old. A tear-jerker for me, not really her. The little girl inside me rebelled at the thought of having to explain loss and cremation to her, hearing, "It's not fair that my mom is gone!" inside my head. And it's also not fair that I have so many examples of death to compare - Steeley or Gran Boot's burials versus Uncle Jackson and Grandmama's cremations. Ugh. But it's a fact of my life, and, therefore, a fact of hers.

So... back to the craft room. We worked at it all day and finally got things moved into the room by my bedtime that night. There are still lots of details for us to tackle: spreading out the rug I bought, moving more craft supplies up from the basement, delivering the LARGE plexiglass that we bought for the dining room table, and assembling a cabinet to go between the windows (which will hold Mommy's craft supplies!). But the craft room is officially functional and ungated and open for little hands.

Jackson was the first to create in the newly-repurposed room. He painted on Thursday, and enjoyed himself immensely.

Maybe I'll show you some more photos once we've broken in the new room and I have everything hanging up, all the drawers labelled, the rug laid and the cabinet assembled. And one day? Oh, yes... I plan to get rid of that grape border and paint the darn room too. But that'll have to wait a bit. Too many other things on my plate! It has felt good to purge, so there are some other projects on the horizon too.