Women Claim Their Own Spaces

Sharon Cardinal, a New Albany single mother of two, assembled letters cut from license plates to make a sign.  It read, "Diva Den."

"We are sitting in my Diva Den," she said. 

It's where she devotes her free time to scrapbooking.

Like a growing number of women across the nation, she wanted some space of her own, 10TV's Tracy Townsend reported.

"So it you have an hour to yourself, but you have to spend 45 minutes trying to find the bag with the stuff, and get it all out, you're not likely to do it," she said.

The project began modestly, when Cardinal decided that she wanted hardwood floors in an odd-shaped room. She met designer Kathy Morgan, president of Space Transitions, at a home show and told her about the odd-shaped room. Kathy came to see for herself.

"As a designer, you have to know what is out there that you can offer to your clients, and then you marry that with what's important to that person," Morgan said.

She installed a rolling table big enough for Sharon and friends to scrapbook together, added bins for materials, moved electrical outlets to move convenient spots, then added bookshelves around the windows and comfortable seating for the TV, Townsend reported.

"My friends come over and we sit and scrapbook and laugh and watch girl movies," Cardinal said.

Morgan said that several years, ago men began to crave "man caves.” Now, women around the country are asking for "she dens."  She says women make 85 percent of the buying decisions for the home, and what they want is their own space to unwind. Cardinal said when other women see her room, they're envious.

"When they come in here and they look at it, they're like oh my gosh, I want to do this in my house." Cardinal said.

Now she and Morgan are planning to re-do the basement, to create a "man cave" for Cardinal's sons.

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