aswim in knits

Friday, April 27, 2007

craft room unpacked

Earlier this week, I unpacked my craft room. I meant to open just one or two boxes, but before I knew it, I had opened up everything, and unpacked it all!

This is the view from the door:

The blue square masked off in front of the windows is where I will put my sewing table and chair. It's in my parents' basement, but Dad is in the process of a major basement clear-out, and I'll get it soon.

In the corner, I have 2 bookcases, one short and one tall. They look pretty good next to each other, though. The shorter unit has all my craft books, as well as pattern binders and magazines on top. I'll be buying some IKEA magazine holders to replace the black plastic ones.

Here's what's in the tall unit --
On top of bookcase: freezer paper and yarn-measuring thing (1 "wrap" around the posts is 1 yard of yarn)
Shelf 1: some IKEA stuff for our bedroom dresser, which we'll assemble this weekend. Then I'll have an empty shelf!
Shelves 2, 4, 5: a dozen and a half storage boxes with all sorts of craft clutter -- knitting needles, yarn labels, patterns, bead tools, adhesives, and one box labelled "craft supplies" -- clearly, this is an old label, from before my craftiness grew out of control!
Shelf 3: a basket with charity knitting
Shelf 6: 2 orange nail/screw containers that have been repurposed to hold my beads and sequins.

So, where's the yarn and fabric, you might ask? Umm, that's in the closet!

The blue chest of drawers has my yarn.
Drawer 1: sock yarn
Drawer 2: sweater yarn (3 sweaters, one of which is a UFO)
Drawer 3: misc cotton and non-animal fibers
Drawer 4: misc wools and animal fibers

On top of the bookcase is my sewing box, a plastic storage box of wooly odds and ends for charity knitting, and a metal basket with cottony scraps for the same purpose.

Leaning on the bookcase is the ironing board.

To the left, an IKEA shoe hanging bag with 4 drawers. So far, this holds my scissors/rulers/measuring tapes, ribbons and buttons, straight knitting needles, swift, plastic storage bags, swatches, plastic bags, and misc odds and ends. There are 4 or 5 empty pockets, and I also have 2 more drawer inserts I can use.

Two large plastic storage boxes of fabric and items to be recycled into craftiness (old jeans, etc.). I have a sweater hanger from IKEA, from the same line as the shoe hanger. I'll use that for the fabric, but I'll first take everything out and fold it.

On the top shelf, far right, is my WIP basket, which needs a better home. It will either go somewhere else in this room or in the living room. The middle box holds a lot of synchronized swimming paperwork, for which I need a file box, and a good purge! The little shoebox has a bunch of fabric scraps, and I need to decide how to organize/store them. The large plastic box holds my various bags (not purses, but totebags, backpacks, etc.) This is not a very convenient place to store them, so I might need to rething where they go. On top are some quilting and embroidery hoops that I inherited from my mom. Not sure where they will end up.

I've also got some clothing that is destined for charitable donation. Once that is given away, I'll have a little more room, too.

As you can see, the room needs some more organizing. Now that I have enough space for everything to be stored properly, I need to sort through everything, and put all like items together. Then, I need to see if there is anything that should be gotten rid of. Finally, I need to think about how I will use the room, and how to put items away in convenient places.

Before I get to that, I'll need to "live" in the space for a while.

Any and all ideas for storage and/or decoration are welcome. I'll be keeping the white curtains, the cool green walls and the navy/white duvet on the twin bed. Everything else is open for discussion!

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6 Comments:

  • Needs more organizing?! You're already an order of magnitude beyond me!

    By Blogger Chris, at 12:01 AM  

  • OK, here's some suggestions. I got some BEAUTIFUL leather magazine holders at Ross (or TJMax, maybe Marshall's?) for CHEAP! They also have a ton of beautiful vases/baskets for cheap. Then there's Michaels/JoAnns and their stunning selection of organization baskets/not-baskets and you can use their copious 40% off coupons in the Sunday papers!

    As for those hoops you inherited. Wouldn't they be great on the walls! Either wrapped around a favorite fabric or with a picture in them as frames!

    By Blogger 5elementknitr, at 12:20 PM  

  • Your craft room is so beautiful and neatly organized! Someday, I will have one of those too!

    By Blogger Dorothy, at 5:05 PM  

  • Wow it looks great. And very organized. I'm impressed.

    Hmmm, maybe that's what I should do next weekend. Nope, not enough time lefti n the year for that project :-)

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 8:10 PM  

  • I bet the books on your shelves are alphabetized, too. ;-)

    I'm impressed. And my stash is totally jealous of yours, what with the Ritz-like accommodations.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 1:03 PM  

  • Wow, everything is so nice and neat and organized. It looks great! I would just like to get all of my yarn in one room, and I don't have that much.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 11:41 PM  

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