Craft Room Redo

I'm so embarressed to show the picture of what my craft room looked like "before". I'm one lucky girl, one who has a husband who not only encourages my creative pursuits, but one whose husband provides space for them. I am lucky because I have not only a kick ass sewing center that he created, but I have a separate craft room for the "rest of my stuff". I love paper and polymer clay and while I play with neither as much as I do fabric, I have quite a collection of both. Add their numerous accessories and I needed a separate space. In my defense, the craft room is our only non-public room and thus became a catch all space. Yanno, the empty boxes we might need to ship stuff in...someday, spare furniture, and anything else that needs to be hidden or put away...someday. Because the room became so stuffed with stuff, I couldn't and wouldn't craft in there, so I would stumble over things, grab what I needed, and then craft in my sewing center. I would box up the craft supplies, open the craft room door, and kinda slide it in so I didn't have to see the disaster. This is the end result!

Disgusting, huh? Well, I got a hair up my ass Saturday and said to myself, "Self, 2012 is your year of becoming organized and you look at this mess day after day". Self shook her head and replied, "today is the day!". Mark was at a class and I downed several cups of coffee, pulled courage from deep within my soul and into the abyss I went. I have to admit, it was like Christmas morning, finding all kinds of cool stuff I forgot I had. I also wondered simple things like why I had a giant basket of styrofoam balls of every size, or what the hell was I making that I needed a plasic pear? One of the promises I made to myself, and my husband, was for every new hobby I started, I would get rid of one. The time had come. I got rid of ten year old bottles of paint, so therefore, I might as well get rid of the painting things, yanno, wooden sleds, wooden boats, wooden oars that I saw and bought with the idea that I would paint them...someday. I hate that word now. Someday is now, I've seen too many people put off for someday and never get to travel or accomplish their goals. Not me, I tell you, my someday is now, today! I hunted out a big empty box, I sure had enough of them, they were the first things I cleared out of the room and what a remarkable difference it made. I started purging, purging, purging. I emptied container after container, drawer after drawer. Another box pulled out and filled. I have one small container of misc craft supplies and everything else is stored and labeled. I only had one "oh but I love this, I hate to get rid of it, it's so cute moment. A set of teeny tiny clay flower pots, and I kept them! Yep, I kept them. But wow, 5 garbage bags of trash, two giant boxes of donations, three boxes to mail goodies to friends and family and I sat in the middle of my room, dirty, tired, and hungry. But oh, so satisfied. Mark came home from class, stood in the doorway stunned. Wow, was all he could say. Then, as per his usual wonderful loving and giving spirit, he suggested we make an ikea trip and buy some cubbies. He knows how I love my cubbies in my sewing center, smart man, that he is. So he measured, and made thinking noises, measured some more and then made some suggestions. We made the 45 minute trip to ikea, god, I love that place, and got what we needed. Mark constructed and I took a nap, LOL. I woke to beautiful cubbies waiting for me to finish organizing. and the result...

I'm in heaven

Gotta love it!

Mark even moved a floor lamp into my room and I spent a considerable amount of time carefully stowing and labeling. During my ruthless purge, I found some magazine clippings I had stashed away. Pictures of my dream craft/sewing room. I waved them in front of Mark and said, this was my dream room. The love of my life tossed the pictures in the trash and said, now you have your dream room and it's so much better than those pictures. God, I love that man!