One of my favorite rooms to organize is a craft room. This craft “room” is more of just an area in the basement living room. The owner of this craft room uses it to make Medieval period clothing and jewelry while her husband makes armor and archery targets. I love her fun and unique hobby (and am very jealous of her sewing skills), so I couldn’t wait to get my hands on this room!  

            

                                                                     A view of the room before and after

 

The first problem that I saw was the table placement. With two folding tables pushed together, there was enough room for cutting, but it also made a large horizontal surface for people to dump their stuff on. Also, it makes it hard to access both tables because you’d have to walk around both. I suggested an “L” shape for the tables. This way her chair could easily pull up to both and she could designate areas on each for different tasks. And by putting her equipment and supplies on the tables in their zones, it leaves less empty horizontal surface for dumping.

   

                                                                            Craft tables before and after

 

         The next major problem was the amount of fabric that she had to keep for her projects and the best way to store them and make them easy to find. She had already arranged her trims, patterns, etc. plastic tubs but there was no room to store these. I suggested hanging the fabric so that it would be easier to see. We both thought that a wire shelving unit would work because she could hang the fabric from the top, put her tubs on the bottom shelves, and put larger fabric on the very top.

   

                                                                                     Floor before and after

                                                         

                                                               The fabric solution – a wire shelving unit

Last week I made an exception to my "take the time" rule.

A friend of mine has four small children including a baby which means she has maybe 20 minutes at most in which to work by herself. She asked for my help in organizing a basement room that had been set up as a storage room. Because we had less than 2 hours, we decided to work in zones.

Like most other homeowners, the objects stored in this room could be sorted into 3 or 4 categories. The trick is to go through the piles and identify the categories. Then if the room is designated for storage, you can create zones. In this particular instance, we classified 3 areas: crafting, holiday decor, and short term storage. Since eventually my friend wanted to use this room as a craft room, we decided to tackle the crafting supplies first.

We were able to go through the bins and coordinate her supplies, clearly mark the bins, and stack them in one corner in a way that allowed easy access.

Because we assigned the other side of the room to be for holiday decor and the closet for short term storage (such as winter clothes), we were able to give the homeowner room to work in. We also created one space that is organized which gives her a bright spot to look at and motivation to finish. Now, when she finds a little time, she has a game plan for how to sort the rest of the room.

This week I was reminded that sometimes we need a fresh pair of eyes when deciding on the best layout for our rooms. When we move we often put items in the same space as they occupied in our old homes without consideration for the new set up. When you get overwhelmed, ask a trusted friend to have a look and give you some ideas. You can also map out your room on paper. Then work in small predesignated zones to keep you motivated.

The craft room was really a craft closet, but still tons of fun!! There is no "before" picture just because it looked mostly like this after pic--we just added the tower of drawers on the right.

The issue was more of a time/space continuum issue (small grin). The homeowner had set up the closet when she moved in, but it was not working for her. Although it looked pretty neat & organized, most drawers were empty or held more of an "assortment" than a "collection". And she had never had the time to go through it....

So we went through her things and sorted them, then came up with assigned living quarters for them.

The drawers are one of my favorite organizing tools because when you want to work--you just bring the whole drawer with you & then put it back when you're done.

Some of the drawer assignments:
1. Tools (paper piercer, cutting tools, stapler)
2. Punches
3. Ribbon (she had a new system that is hanging on the side but we left coordinated ribbon on their backing and put it in the drawer)
4. Embossing--wet & dry.
5. Letters (rub ons, stickers, etc)

We also put her "Antonius" system in the adjoining room for her stamps. ..but that particular system (new fave) I'll save for another blog post.