As part of their basement transformation, a Missouri couple created a room dedicated solely to gift wrapping. One of the homeowners worked with designers from Mosby Building Arts to craft a room to store her rainbow of ribbons, jars of brushes, and rolls of wrapping paper. The final design includes a work island, storage hutch and office space.
Photos by Toby Weiss of Mosby Building Arts
The designers worked with the homeowner to create a crafting getaway. She already had the wrapping supplies but needed the perfect place to use them, especially before the holidays.
“It’s not every day someone says, ‘I want a dedicated gift-wrapping room,’” says designer Brian Yount. “The client was fantastic to work with, as she had a very clear vision of what she wanted.”
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This project also posed interesting challenges for the design team. While other rooms of the home have similar features, the designers needed to ask additional questions about how the homeowner would use this space specifically and what she would store.
The French doors open to a room ready for wrapping. The doors also provide privacy and quiet in her workroom when the grandkids are creating in their craft studio down the hall.
Overhead, the designers used recessed lighting and three pendant lights to illuminate the space. They chose traditional lanterns for the pendants to give the room a more elegant, sophisticated feel and set it apart from the grandkids’ studio down the hall, Yount says.
You can see more of this basement update here, including the craft studio for the grandchildren.
The large island in the middle of the room allows the homeowner to spread out her wrapping paper with ease. The designers worked closely with her and the staff at their local cabinet shop to design an island that stood at the perfect height for her, Yount says.
While the top of the table allows for wrapping, the legs provide additional storage. The designers ordered panels from the cabinet supplier and had the island custom-built for the space.
On the wall behind the island, the designers had three wall-mounted wrapping paper dispensers installed at heights suitable for the homeowner.
This craft hutch holds most of the homeowner’s wrapping supplies, from cutting tools to ribbons. She had the supplies in boxes, so the team had to approximate how many drawers and rods she would need to store everything.
“She had a great number of ribbons,” Yount says.
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With this knowledge, the designers worked closely with the in-house carpentry staff to meet the homeowner’s storage needs. The options included shallow drawers for different types of paper, and multiple ribbon rods in the walnut cabinets finished in white.
In addition to the rods in the hutch, she added a rack for larger spools of ribbon.
Across the way, the same white cabinets create a home office space. She needed a place for her computer and printer, and plenty of room to lay out projects. The desk also houses a large-format printer in the bottom-right cabinets. The husband and the family dog also spend time in this space, Yount says.
The cabinets along the wall by the desk offer additional storage, including pullout shelves for easy access.
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For the floor covering, the designers and homeowners chose to use vinyl on top of the concrete floor. “When we work in a basement on top of concrete, because of moisture issues, sometimes vinyl is a better long-term solution,” Yount says. Plus, this wood-styled finish looks real, Yount says, and isn’t too hard underfoot.