My Studio Takes Shape

I had planned to work on the books all day organizing them all until all four bookish areas in my place (including the new-found book nook) were utterly perfect. However, after a few more errands I brought Sophie, age 11, over to work on the craft room. Thank goodness for that. Without her help I am sure I would have spread the bookshelf project out for a few more days and probably not truly started on the craft room until the following weekend.

Instead, subscribing to the philosophy, "sometimes you have to make things messier to get things in order" we dragged nearly everything out of the craft room/sewing room/computer room which will hereby be known as "my studio." We put all "containers" in the living room and called it "the container store" and we put all the STUFF of my studio into the hallway so we had piles of ribbons and stacks of yarn and fabric, cotton batting, clothes that needed mending, sea shells, baby jars, felt, markers, paints and so forth.

I'd already set up the layout of the room the way I wanted it. That was decided. The three blonde bookshelves previously from the book nook area were moved in. I bought two small tables. My computer and printer were set up. I'd already sorted the shoe bag organizer that hangs on the back of the door.

I'd tentatively chosen some magazine holders for my Real Simple magazines and Sophie helped me make the decision between black and white on that one.

The sewing machine was set up in the closet and I had some dowels to put the ribbons on and so she helped me do that too and even figured out a way to do TWO dowels so I could hang them all. The crates from my previous office space were now stacked one on top of another in the closet to create shelving on either side of the sewing machine. Our job now was to slowly return all the crafty items to the room in an orderly fashion. The following images are after it was completed a few days later.

the closet

the closet -- sewing work space

Of course, I only had Sophie for a few hours and then she went home to bed and I kept on working. The sheer mess was motivating. It wasn't all done by bedtime, but I was much much closer. Thank goodness for Sophie.