FINALLY! The Craft Room-Library-Office tour!

I'm going to warn you, this is a picture heavy post and I am going to try to explain each one. If you have any questions, or want more information, let me know and I'll do my best!

I also need to mention that Matt made this room from scratch. This room is in the corner of the basement which didn't have any walls or anything. The room next to it is our bedroom, which he also made, so he did a LOT of work on this. 

Ready?

As you walk up to the door, this is your view. Not only do I have a door, but I have a door that LOCKS. Granted, I'm directly under Penelope and Lucy's room, and the bathroom, and it isn't soundproof so I won't be blaring music or talking loudly down here, but I really like having a space to hide. 

I have some more photos of the desk but man... this desk took forever. My original plan was to do a 5 foot by 5 foot desk with cabinets/storage all around. Once we moved furniture in and got bookshelves up, that was a bit too big. So I settled on a 4 foot by 4 foot desk, which is still great. Matt made my counter top with a piece of wood and some laminate to match my desk top and he made a base for everything. Again, I'll have more info below on this. 

When you come into the room, this is immediately to the left. All of my adult fiction and non-fiction books are over here. My bottom shelf is some of my scrapbooking thing and I have two large Iris cases on the floor but also Jackson's puzzle he mod podged that I need to get a frame for it. 

I have a tiny window with glass you can't see out of (or in) but I do have a tiny section that opens up so I can get some air in. MOSTLY though, I get dirt from the ground come through so I don't open it much. HA! 

I still have my pink dresser from the old house, which fits perfectly under the window. I have odds and ends in here mostly. One drawer is washi tape and sharpies, the other small one is junk I probably don't need. The first big drawer is bookstagram prop things, the second drawer are my cutting board and trimmer, but also some more school work projects for Penelope and Lucy's school books. The bottom drawer are my stamps and stamp sets. I really downsized when we moved and I only kept my favorites and things I use frequently. 

On this section I have all of my young adult books! You'll notice Edward's head is all that survived and he fits perfectly so he stays. I have my books mostly organized by series and then the singles/duets are toward the bottom. The bottom shelf is some homeschool books/worksheets I'm still working on with Pep & Lu, some of their crayons/color books, my high school yearbooks and diploma things. 

The biggest wall/section of books is romance. When we moved Matt told me to downsize because I wouldn't have as much room. So I did that and now I regret it because I could have kept them! I actually do re-read my books. I don't have these alphabetized or anything, but the same author is grouped together, series are in order, and Linda Howard book are always on top. :)

The tail end of the shelf has my favorite picture of me and my friends, and on the floor is my box containing everything medical related for my book. 

I have an L shaped desk and I love it. I've got the world's crappiest printer on the edge, though I think we are saving for a less crappy one. I've been putting my review books there so I have them at the ready when I am doing stuff on the computer. 

The view looking at my desk. I continue to love my free chair so much and Matt made everything the perfect height so I could still use it. I have some artwork I'm making to fill wall space and I have some photos I want to frame to fill that in. I also decided I'm into letters so I have random "S" letters around my room. Also cool? That white cabinet to the right used to be scrapbook storage and since we sold my old desk with drawers, I repurposed that to be desk drawers and it actually works great. 

Alright, so this wall is almost all craft supplies. Matt made me the wall flower to store paint, it's completely made out of plumbing supplies, I believe. 

You'll notice I don't have a ceiling and its because that metal thing is (clearly) lower than the door and when we looked at the options it seemed to be a bigger pain than I wanted to deal with. It was monkey with that or get a laundry sink so I picked laundry sink. Matt still has to put door trim on but I'm not in a hurry. 

OK, so now I'll talk details. 

I bought this book cart at the other house and I had big plans. The little girls took it over for awhile and I agreed to give them the bottom tray. I am using the top two for book stacks I need to photograph, but I think the middle one will end up my scrap paper area so I can see it and use it while I'm working. 

I've still got my rainbow candles! That's a better look at the homeschool work stuff for the girls, too. 

Say hello to Edward. I know you've missed him as much as I did. 

Fun story: when I was little my favorite thing was this Smurfette stuffed animal and I called her Furfy. She is, and will forever be, Furfy. She even has the original pigtails my mom put in there because I took them out when I'd rub her hair too much. I used to rub her hair on the palm of my hand as an anxiety reducer. Anyways. She was in a fire and though she survived, she looks rough. Matt as a young kid had this Papa Smurf. It's his original one so our Smurfs sit on my shelf together, they used to be on my dresser. I found a set of Smurf glasses from the 80s on eBay for less than $20 so I got them. I LOVE THEM. 

These little PinMates come in my Bookworm Box every month and I used to have them in their boxes but it became so bulky so I took them out. They sit on my romance wall staring at the door. 

There's my favorite friend picture. I think this was my 30th birthday, Chicago for St. Patrick's Day? I also have my cup of bookmarks and the edge of my unicorn bunny gnome. 

Ooh.. ok, so my flowers. I sometimes change out this vase I have for bookstagram, or just use flowers in photos. I used to store them in a basket but now that it would sit out on the shelf, it looked kind of junky. I found these baskets on Amazon for cheap and they actually work perfectly. The blue decoration is something I thought looked like mermaid scales and I had used in Penelope's nursery over the rocking chair. I think I got it at the dollar store in the party section. I still just really like it so it is in here. 

So here is more of a close up of my paint flower. If you want to make your own flower (maybe for a teen's room or your living room, whatever) you can find detailed instructions on JenniferMakers blog, she has SO MANY ideas and you legit cannot screw this up. I can see all of my paints which is already so nice. 

I repurposed that pen holder from another cube I had. It is meant for pens but that rectangle could come out of the cube, and that cube broke in the move. Luckily I could still use that and if I want to I can just bring it to the table. Same with my basket. That basket is only temporary, I found a clear box to store the new Stampin! Up ink pads in since they don't fit in the twirly caddy anymore, but this works in the meantime. Normally that's the basket I use for keeping my Christmas card pieces together while I work on them. 

These drawers.... I wanted the Alex drawers from IKEA. The nearest IKEA to me is in Minneapolis/St. Paul and this was happening as everything is shutting down and they would not ship. They didn't do curbside. The only other place I could find them online was Amazon. I ended up buying two of these and somehow in my head thought they were wider. It worked out find because one set holds my punches, glitter, embossing stuff, and the other set is yarn, kid crafty things, and odds and ends. The drawers are GREAT and slide out really nice, highly recommend. 

Those boxes are kits and crafty things I've ordered and haven't had time to put together yet. My twirly caddy for ink pads. Matt even fixed my paper shelves so they aren't droopy or broken from when baby Penelope thought they were ladders, so that's nice. I really, really, really want this, but Matt hasn't had the time and again, we'd have to go to IKEA to get some parts and just not ready to do that yet. 

I have gotten a few handmade cards since we moved and I am keeping them up there because they just make me happy. 

I also have a bunch of art I've received from other friends and bloggers and I have those all around the room. My friend Beverly does amazing dot art and I just love this piece. 

The goat is cross stitched by my friend Rose who used to blog but we're friends on Facebook. Beverly also did the lilacs, which used to be in our downstairs bathroom at the old house but now it is in here. 

And eight or nine year old Olivia made me the rainbows, but I still had it so it's up. I've got a card from Matt, another S that I made prettier, and my award from Duluth Moms Blog a few years ago. 

I have a wedding picture that used to be in our living room but we don't have room for, my planner, the cutest vase full of Smarties, and my metal Dory I found at a vintage store. 

No, I don't have two computers. My laptop (that I love) is dying and Matt is in the process of replacing it with a new computer. I just have the monitor here so I knew how big it would be. 

My little corner of stuff. I have some artwork from Penelope on the wall and my white board is where I keep track of review books that are coming via mail because I often forget. So if a book comes and its on there, I know where to put it. 

I have a drawer of candy. I mean, when a giant fundraiser box of M&M's goes on sale, that is a sign from the universe. 

OK, so my craft table is made of our homemade counter that I talked about above and two of these cabinets from Overstock. If I had to complain about anything, its that the cupboards don't fit a lot, they aren't big enough. The drawers are OK but those would be amazing if they were a little bit wider and deeper. It's not the end of the world because I've made them work just fine. They are screwed to base so its one solid table but could easily be unscrewed if we had to move or whatever. 

You can see how big the work space is, that is a 12x12 piece of paper and I've got a lot of room!

Under the table there is a "middle" area which is where my feet/legs can go when I'm working. I've been sticking two little chairs under there for the little girls. They cannot sit in the chairs and work because they are far too low, but Lucy can stand on one to reach the table. Penelope does too, but she almost ALWAYS falls off so now she just stands on the floor. I also have a piece of cardboard I use when I'm spraying something so I don't get it all over the place so I just store it under there because it fits. 

I normally prefer to come down here by myself to do stuff but every once in awhile the kids make their way down here to do stuff. 

I absolutely LOVE this room and its easily my favorite craft area I've ever had. Its nice to come down here and work on things and its also nice to come down here and do nothing. Just sit. 

OK- that's the tour! I hope you liked it! Let me know if you have any questions and I'll do my very best. Cheers!

Organization Brainstorm

I am struggling hard with clutter and things that aren't neat and orderly. Unfortunately it's not like I can just put things away and suddenly problem solved. My office/library/craft room is rather small; therefore my solutions for optimizing space are limited. My other issue is this is an everything room. I store all of my books here, my desk with our bills/filing is in here, and then all of my craft stuff is in here.

It's really hard to come up with a plan that lets me do all of this plus enjoy being in here.

So here's where I'm at as of this week:

You can see my desk and my shelf of some books. I typically keep book box books (lower right side) and my review books (lower left side) here. The top shelf is all of my Linda Howard books, and the middle shelf are books from authors I have a few books from.

To the left is my scrapbook desk. It was here when we moved here and this room actually used to be a bedroom for the wife because her knees were bad and she couldn't get up the stairs to where the bedrooms were. So she did her crafting/resting in here. The area I'm using as a scrapbook desk used to be where she had a TV and other equipment (there are outlets in the cabinet and holes drilled to hide cords). Honestly, it's a cool little space. I once asked if I could just make that entire wall deep like that but Matt said a chimney or something runs behind where I have my shelves.

💡 Matt's idea is to get rid of one of the doors and make that an open area to put my legs and put the printer in the remaining cabinet since I don't use it a ton and put my laminator in there. Lower the table top down so it's on top of the cabinet and move my computer/desk stuff there. We can move the shelving as needed (or add another one) and I can keep review books there and then other desk things. 

The books on this shelf are mostly romance/things the kids really can't read. I'd like to get ride of the white storage cubes I have under there since the cabinet is broken, and the large drawers are heavy. It's not really working for me anymore.

On the one large wall I have that doesn't go the whole length because on the ride side (where the picture cuts off) is a closet that is space under the stairs, so it isn't huge but it does hold a few things I need not a lot, but enough that running to the basement would be a pain. The paper storage isn't working for me because I have a lot more categories of paper than shelves, so I have to figure out a new way.

While I love my shelves, not having sides is kind of becoming an issue for me. That and I'm basically out of room. So... obviously that's an issue.

I've been trolling Pinterest for craft room/library ideas but, as it turns out, there aren't a whole bunch of ideas out there. My dream would be to have a big table area for the middle of my room so that the kids could do stuff there too, or I could spread out to do things. Or if I had a large project going, I wouldn't have to clean it up to have dinner because I'm working on the dining room table.

Source: jennifermaker.com

I saw this table on Pinterest and she made her own large table using some shelving and drawers from IKEA and that was really pretty cool. I asked Matt and he says he would be willing to put something like this together for me. Which led me to the IKEA website this weekend. The nearest one to me is a little over two hours away so I could make a trip there, and we probably will because I need to see things in person to really understand their size.

This is listed as 78 3/4 inches by 93 1/4 inches and that would take up my entire big wall... but would it fit all of my books?? I don't know. If it did then I could get another shelf for that wall next to my would be desk and store more books there.

These drawers look like they would fit larger/wider things and Matt says I wouldn't have to use the wheels, or I could put legs on it if I wanted it taller.

I thought a couple of these would be cool. So maybe two of these and one of the Kallax shelves turned side ways?

I don't know. My goal this month is to get rid of what I truly don't use or need in my craft stuff and then look at what I'm keeping and decide what it would fit best in. But by the end of the year this room is going to be far more functional. That's the plan.

Do you have a crafty space with great storage ideas? SHARE THEM WITH ME. I'm kind of desperate and I'm not as creative as I used to be. I need help. Ha!