My Craft "Room"

A few weeks ago, there was a linky party going around about showing your craft room off. Well, mine isn't a "room" and it looks awful! But I have some big plans for it, so I thought I would show you anyways. 

Here is what it looked like when we bought the house. (I have taken down the white board, moved all the paint cans and put my crafting stuff there!)

Yep, that's my work bench "corner".

Here's what I want to do:

The area where the white board is and over to the right corner (which you can't see in this picture) will become my laundry room. I want it to look like this:

This is from Melanie at The Old White Cottage (a very cute blog by the way!). She found it in Country Home. All they did was hang a curtain to cover up that old nasty block wall and make it brighter and homier! I could totally do that in my corner.

I am going to paint the work bench, the "backsplash" and the peg board a white to make it a little brighter, too. Then, I will paint the shelf and the top of the bench a darker gray color so it will have a little contrast, as well as not show a bunch of dirt and grime.

Sort of like this look (only my top isn't stainless steel):

I want to put nice little knobs on the doors under the work bench. Or open it up for more storage like this:

Or put sliding shelves in them:

And then on the wall to the left of the bench, I want to put a desk/hutch thing where I can sit and work on stuff! 

And because there is no natural light, I want to paint the whole area a cheery yellow.

I would love to put a curtain or something around that ugly hot water heater too! Any ideas for hiding that thing?

Thanks for taking a "tour" of my someday-to-be craft room!