My husband and I have a “studio”. One of the reasons we picked the house we did is that it had a family room off the kitchen - actually it sort of opens into the kitchen with a big squared off archway between the rooms. It is not an original part of our house. One of the several owners before us added it to the back of the house as room to watch television and spend time with their family. To us it was a room to set up to work on our crafts - personal and to sell - and I would be able to cook at the same time in the adjacent kitchen. In the days before cable boxes and flat screen TVs we could also put our kitchen TV on a lazy susan and turn it around to also watch in the studio.
We set up the studio to suit our needs. We each have a 5 ft by 2 ½ foot office type table to work on. The tables sit back to back so if needed we have a 5 ft x 5ft space to work on - the tables are, for some reason, about an inch different in height, but generally that is not a problem if we need space. I have a bridge table in the corner of the room which abuts the table. When I used to make a lot of baby quilts it worked well to hold them up while I stitching them. It also is good to hold supplies and stuff next to me. I have two stacks of small plastic drawer units to hold ideas in progress, spare spools of thread, etc. There is a large 3 drawer plastic chest underneath with my sewing supplies and items to make small bears I used to make a lot of. Husband just had his table until a few years ago, after the bed bugs when I was trying to better organize the room, I added a 2 shelf plastic unit to hold items he needs more often than others next to him along the wall.
We have husband’s long dresser from his bedroom when he was a boy at the ends of the tables (the other ends are against the wall). Drawers hold embroidery supplies and pieces - completed and waiting to be made, miniature punch needle - ditto, wood turning parts and assembly tools, lucets, wooden games husband makes, some fancy batting and iron on glue and a pasta maker (well it is right off our kitchen and no place else was large enough). On top of it we have a 3 drawer unit which has a drawer each for items either of us is working on and a drawer of glues - all kinds of glues. (If we need glue in the house we know to look for it here.) There are an assortment of paper cutters - sliding ones, guillotine type ones, etc. There is also something called an Ellison machine - what is used in schools to cut letters, pictures, etc. to decorate classrooms.
We have 2 other dressers which we bought over the years which hold fabric - we have a lot of fabric. These are the ones which are cut pieces - the bolts are in the basement. We also have a dresser/cabinet combination - also husband’s from when he was a boy - which holds unstarted skeins of embroidery floss (Walmart discontinued them some years ago and we bought 2 of each color they had - since then they have brought them back) and other assorted needlework threads. The fabric dresser behind husband’s chair at his work table also serves as a counter to put things on and work on. We have two tall bookcases for books and magazines - mostly craft, but my recipe books are also here (again, remember this is next to the kitchen) and there is a collection of girls books I have and I keep it here as husband needed most of my bookcase in our office/library and there are some shelves along one wall which holds items we have made.
Lastly, of what I will mention right now, we have a big piece of furniture which I do not know what to call. It is divided in two - one side has shelves with full length doors in front of them and the other side has shelves with 2 small drawers at the bottom. The plan is to take the doors off and then plastic boxes of supplies can be turned depthwise - as they are on the other side of the unit - and smaller boxes put next to them - ditto.
When we had the bedbugs I had to heat all of the cut fabric in the dryer on high heat for 50 minutes and then bag them in sealed plastic bags. It was a mess. Between the fabric and personal fabric items I filled over 60 bags of fabric items. The thought of returning the fabric to the drawers was overwhelming. I finally decided to do 10 pieces a day. Husband pointed out that 10 pieces is not much - I replied that it is 10 pieces put away more than before. Day by day I did this. Some days it went well and I put away more than 10 pieces - other days there was just no time. Within a month and a half to 2 months - the fabric was put away - neater and better organized than before and I had done something I always planned to do - I cut a piece of each fabric and made a swatch card by gluing the piece of fabric to half a 3.5x5 inch index card. I then put the cards into the plastic sleeves made to hold baseball cards in a looseleaf book. (The looseleaf book dates back to high school.) We can now look through the book for fabric when need it. It is marked with the purpose the fabric was bought for, where it is located, and how much we have (all in pencil so it can be changed as needed). I also have a diagram in the front of the looseleaf book with the dressers, a number I gave to each drawer, and generally what is in each drawer to make it easier to find.
I sorted ribbon. I sorted lace. I bagged pompoms. I put all of the weaving, knitting, and crocheting and related stuff on one shelf in the unnamed shelf unit. I made a box with assorted general crafts. I made a box of buttons. I sorted findings for leatherwork into a sectional box (with a note where I stored spare in the basement). I was progressing along well. I used the dining room table covered over to protect it, some wood crates we used at craft shows to hold up the shelves, plastic boxes and such to sort and store craft supplies.
Then I hit a snag. We had a tall thin set of plastic drawers. They never worked well - any weight in them was too much. We decided to replace it with a new and better made dresser. We started looking. We could not get too wide a dresser as one of the bookcases faces the side of the dresser and we have to have room to walk in front of the bookcase to have access to the shelves. It took us about a year to find a dresser. We bought one in the children’s section of Ikea. We assembled it and set it up. I started figuring out what to put in it. Top drawer - in sectional dividers - scissors and small hand tools (and over the years it has also accumulated personal stuff I have to deal with), next drawer - paints, markers, inks, crayons color pencils, another drawer husband’s paper cutting scissors and paper, a drawer with pieces of felt in it. It was going so well.
Then we had mice in the (again, adjacent) kitchen. I carefully sanitized most of the cleaning supplies and put them in some of the cartons I had been using for sorting craft supplies and they ended up in front of the new dresser - leaving supplies unstored and drawers empty and inaccessible. This went on for several years until I got around to cleaning out under the sink in the kitchen this past year and moved the kitchen stuff back in place.
Now I could go back to organizing. In the interim we, of course, needed the dining room so supplies and what they were in were stored back in the studio willy nilly - filling up space and blocking things.
Two weeks ago husband was again talking about a weaving book “we” own. He wanted it as it contained instructions on how to make a certain type of small loom he wanted to make. I was sick and tired of hearing about this magic, missing book, so at 3 in the morning, I moved the crates and so on that were stashed in front of the bookcase facing the new dresser. I got everything out from in front of the bookcase and found the “weaving section” - 3 books. (I had done a lot of work at sorting and organizing in the studio before I got stumped at continuing.) I gave him the book that seemed to be what he was looking for and it was - yay for me. It did not have the directions he wanted for the small loom. Oh, well.
Well, now we had crates and other items out blocking space in the room. I went through the crates and they had much less in them than I thought and in one evening they were emptied out of everything which did not belong in them (table covers for craft shows were left in them). The next thing to do was to put them away.
The crates and a variety of other items store under my work table - far enough in to be out of my way when sitting at the table as they are rarely used. (The table itself is covered with stuff to be sorted and stored.) I figured that I would take out the plastic boxes under the table which “I knew” held the small bears I had made, store the crates, and put back the boxes - easy, peasy - half hour, 45 minutes at most. I bet you can guess what is coming -
I pulled out the boxes and put them on husband’s studio table. (His table is empty as he has been drying items he weaves on it.) I found out that most of the boxes had items other than I thought they did. Some years ago we had bought square and rectangular gift boxes for pens and jewelry which husband made to sell. They did not sell well. We have since been using the square boxes in shipping out some other items he makes and have been running out of the square boxes. One of these plastic boxes had some of the turned items in it - I combined some of the items which were in square boxes into 2 rectangular boxes - hmmm, 4 more boxes he could use. I then took the carton which had the jewelry pieces in the gift boxes and combined same into many less rectangular boxes- for storage - and ended up with a good number of square boxes. I also found that this way all of the small turned items fit in the one plastic box for storage (bowls, plates, etc. are in another carton). I then managed to combine 3 cartons of boxes into one as enough had been taken out and one also used to hold the jewelry - what a great change in storage space! (The 2 empty cartons went out to the porch for recycling - one was used for last week’s recycling and the other will be shortly be used for same.
I then climbed under my table and stored the crates, the plastic boxes, and some other craft show display items under the table - 2 plus hours work - but what a difference. What a great feeling of getting something done. I went on to clear some smaller areas and put the excess stuff away.
Now, I have mentioned in the past that we do 1770's reenacting. Husband is looking for something to do at events - he used to be commander, but no longer is and can now do what he wants instead of needing to run events. He needs a small, period looking table for several of his ideas. The table has to be able to be taken apart for storage and in transit. He decided the best way would be to use screw in legs which are available at home/lumber stores even though these are definitely not correct to the period, but made properly it would just look like a small table with legs. (What does this have to do with organizing - just wait and see.)
We went out the day after I had stored the crates and boxes away to find legs that looked right. He saw the price of the legs and realized that it would cost much more to make the table than he had planned - he had to get wood for the table top and the screw pieces also. Then I said magic words - “When I was under the table last night putting stuff away I had to move 2 sets of those legs.” He could not figure out why we had them - I reminded him that he had made a table for a knitting machine - decades ago - but neither of us can remember what the other set of legs is for. I was pretty sure one set of the legs was definitely passable for the purpose.
So, we went home and, yes, I had to take back out most of what I stored away the night before. This time I was smart - I handed him my chair so it was out of the way and I did not need to deal with it. (Notice when I am organizing and cleaning it is “me” doing it and he is scarce - when he needs table legs it is “we” doing it and he is “helping” me.) Well the legs were fine and then I had to store everything else back - again.
The other night - now that I have access to the bookcase - I sorted needlework magazines which I have just been fitting in on top of books when I did not have access. Most of them went into the magazine cases we have, I need 2-3 more magazine cases and, yes, I have decided some magazines I no longer need for reference and have started looking through them for any articles I want to keep and putting the rest out for recycling.
He had mentioned that one issue of the magazines I had and was sorting was suppose to have an article on weaving. As I was going through I noticed that one of them had weaving on the cover - yes, it was the one he wanted. The craft magazines are now sorted by date. Many of them have previously had their tables of contents scanned into the computer to make searching for an article or subject easier. Now with access I will one day be able to scan the rest.
Yes, progress is finally being made again!
Have you been working on any organizing projects and finally making progress?
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