Do you mind if I dance a little jig? Because that is what I've been doing pretty much every day since last Friday which saw the final day of The Great Craft Room Makeover. I've been crafting for 2 1/2 years in a small bedroom which was formerly a nursery in its past life (before I bought the house). This room had been many things in my early years in this house - a sewing room, a gift wrapping room, and more often than not, a place to throw things to get them out of sight when company came. You know, the JUNK room. I would periodically go in and clean it out just to have it get messed up again a few months later. Then I retired a couple of years ago and started crafting and I cleaned the room out again, though, not being the DIY type of person, I never put any shelves up. I just started crafting, having moved an antique table in there, and things progressed from there as I acquired more and more craft supplies with no place to put them. Or should I say they DI-gressed from there. What had initially been a lovely room for using my Viking embroidery machine devolved into an ever shrinking circle of functionality until, at last, I could function no more. (If you've wondered why my production and blog posts have been decreasing, this is why.)
And one day I said enough is enough. I hired a top-rated local firm, Get Organized!, to come in, gut the room, and put it back so that I could find everything AND have a pretty room in which to play, and I had only two requirements: I had to be able to either sew or craft at will without moving anything around, and I had to be able to have a space for another crafter. And the wonderful ladies of the team did JUST THAT (with lots of "go-fering" from me). They used products from The Container Store and IKEA, and I provided some vintage and antique storage pieces as well. They took what to me was an insurmountable task and turned it into a fun adventure with a fantastic result, much like when Mary Poppins straightened up the Banks children's bedroom.
So without further ado, here is my craft room, before and after The Great Craft Room Makeover. The pictures will be worth thousands of words, so I will stop talking now. Except to say...
don't judge me please. Ha!
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| Isn't that nursery border lovely? It was there when I moved in 14 years ago. |
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| My ever shrinking work space |
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| The embroidery table cum storage surface |
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| No words for this area |
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| At least it was colorful. |
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| Where it all happened. HOW, I wonder now. |
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| The only sewing I could do was on cards while sitting on the stool. |
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| Two DVD towers. And a blocked window. |
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| The closet |
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| Because you wanted to see the disaster up close, right? |
And
then...after 2 full 8-hour days and another half day (not including the
day I took the border down and cleaned up the bare room)...
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| TA DAAAHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Check out the dual work station! |
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| The Big Shot station including punches, dies and embossing folders. |
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| A place for everything, and everything in its place. |
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| My countertop is clean! These buckets are from IKEA. |
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| A vintage shelf, painted the perfect color, found in East Texas |
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| Sewing central |
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| One of the DVD towers, now a statement piece of decor. |
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| It holds all of my ink sprays, ink refills and most of my shimmer paints. |
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| Glitters and small shimmer paints. |
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| Heat tools hidden out of sight until I need them. And all in one place. |
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| Adhesives |
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| Gift wrap station and all of the non-pretties |
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| The other DVD tower hidden in the closet. It holds all of my glues and other media. |
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| Out of sight, but still handy |
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| The joint work table, or a second surface for project overflow. The little trays are brilliant and hold my crafting essentials! |
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| My trusted crafting companion. |
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| And the darling ladies who made it all happen. THANK YOU S. & S.!! |
I still need to hang some decorative items, and I'm in the process of organizing my clear stamps in binders, but my crafting life has definitely taken a turn for the better. My husband's delighted too as he now hears nothing but happy sounds coming from the room instead of the sounds he heard before. (What's said in the craft room stays in the craft room.)
Thank you so much for joining me today and I wish you much crafting pleasure this week as I know I'm going to have!
Happy crafting!
