The After.....

Well after a VERY long week, the big re-do of my craft room is done.  I had a few questions along the way, so I'll get to those first before the rest of the after photos.  Q: Are you getting a new desk? Not right now, the desk and the filing cabinet were the only pieces of furniture that stayed.  Everything else was either put to use in a different part of the house or given away.  Q: Are you going to paint? No, we painting this room when we first moved in, it was a horrid, ugly green...bleh! The room is blue, we like the blue very much.  I do share this room with Dan, he has a small corner.  I've slowly taken over the room, but I've gone as far as I can go.....for now.  There were a few things that didn't change at all, my punch storage, I didn't photograph that but if you're interested I will.  My ink storage..you'll see in a minute.  This whole re-do was very much needed to re-organize everything!  The 'before' pictures you saw on Friday was a room that had worked for while, a long time actually, but just wasn't functional anymore for me.  I NEEDED a change!  The after pictures that you'll see in a minute are what works for me.  Ever crafter and stamper is unique and there's not one storage option that works for everyone.  My space is a decent size, you may have more options if your space is bigger, you may need more creative options if your space is smaller.  This works for me, if you have questions please feel free to post and I'll answer them if I can :)

Step one in the redo was getting the old furniture out.....that meant clearing everything off and in.....this hot mess is what was left.  It's literally piles of stuff, in no organizational matter.  One of my failures that I did run into was where I would put things during the transition.  Boxes would have been helpful, I did end up pulling out all my Thirty One Totes and shoving stuff in them.  You wouldn't know it by this picture but I did get rid of a lot of stuff, really I did!

I had everything cleared off and was ready for the new furniture by Wednesday of last week.  So really when the 'before' pictures posted I had most of my furniture put together!  I had planned for it to take much longer but it went quicker than I thought so we picked up the furniture on Wednesday instead of Friday!  I'm sure you can tell by the lovely orange cart where it was bought from.  I looked around a lot!  Home Depot was the best place I found to get this cube storage units.  Now before I start getting all the replies like "did you look here, there, etc" YES.  I know other places sell these, IKEA for one. We don't have an IKEA in New Mexico, I'd have to drive to Denver or Phoenix and I didn't want to pay for shipping.  So these are the Martha Stewart brand.  I'm not a giant Martha Stewart fan, but this style was what I wanted.  I also went with Home Depot because the Martha Stewart brand had a really cute bench that other brands didn't have.  It was a good buy, once the pieces were assembled I liked them even more.  They're really sturdy and they hold a lot!  I was worried when I was putting them together that I wouldn't have enough room but I actually have some extra room, room to grow :)  I got two of the 3x3 cubes and one of the 2x3 cubes and the bench.

Here's a look from the doorway at my room. That dark corner on the left, that's Dan's corner, I'm not going to share that part :)  The bench isn't huge, I knew it wouldn't be.  It's a little over 3 feet.  We're considering getting a second bench, perhaps down the road.  But I have some space on either side of the bench to store larger items, stuff I'm working on, orders I need to deliver, etc.  I love it!  You'll also have to excuse the window blinds in the pictures, they're beat up, my cat likes to chew on them...yes chew them!  Strange cat!  So some of them are broken because she's a weirdo cat!

I said earlier my desk didn't change, it's MUCH cleaner and MORE organized but I didn't really change much about it.  I still store my ink (pads and markers) mounted on my wall.  My dad made that unit.  I know other places sell similar ones.  My desk area works well, it was just so cluttered it was hard to function.  Hopefully...it will stay like this :)

My filing cabinet is also the same.  It has all my 8.5x11 cardstock.  It has worked really well for me.  Here's the first 3x3 cube unit.  This one is pretty much all stamp sets and Big Shot stuff.  Luckily I didn't have to take anything off this wall.  The plan is to take the Big Shot to my desk when I need to use it.

The top left cube has my platforms and my cutting plates and my bigz foam dies, though I don't have many of those left.  The next space is for my framelits and embossing folders.  My embossing folders are stored in wood mount cases.  It makes it really easy to just open the case and flip though them.  My framelits are in the process of moving to 6x6 albums for storage.  I'll post more on this another time.  But basically I put the framelits in one of the clear 6x6 sleeves, then I can flip through the book to find what I need.  The 6x6 albums I got at a big craft store.  The rest of the unit is for my stamp sets.  I have room to grow my stamp colletction all the way across the bottom.  The bottom right bin is mostly empty, it has a few empty clear mount cases and my tri pod in it.  If needed I'll move that and expand my stamp collection.  The stamps are also pulled up to the edge for easier access but if needed I could push them all the way back and have more storage in front of them too. 

I debated a loooooonnnnnnng time how to store them, I thought maybe one cube for Christmas, one for Birthdays, etc.  I decided against that and stored them alphabetically, mostly because there's so many times that one stamp set is used for multiple occasions or events and I didn't want to have to search through many cubes to find it or debate with every one I had where to store it.  I also spent some time last week converting my 4 sets that were left in the old wood mount cases into the new wood mount cases.  So everything is all the same now.  So much easier to store that way! 

I love that I have spaces now to show either stuff I've made and love or stuff that's been given to me.  I have a slight obession with sharpies, they have their own jar :)  My friend Kim gave me that framed pharase at the Craft And The City Scrapbook Weekend.  It's so cute it says "I like my money right where I can see it....in my craft room!"  So cute and up until now I had no where to display it!  Not anymore!

The bench is still a work in progress, there will be a cushion for the bench.  It came with one and if you like not attractive tan/beige color it's perfect for you.  I wanted it a little prettier so the cushion is currently at my parents house my mom is sewing me some covers for it.  I picked out 3 patterns and I'll be able to change them out as I see fit :)  The bench is probably one of my favorite things ever!  There's smaller storage directly under the bench, not much going on there right now.  I orginally wasn't going to do any bins, but I decided I needed them.  I got these at Lowes.  The storage units were a better buy at Home Depot, the bins were a better buy at Lowes.  Don't be afraid to shop around :)  The bin on the left is my scrapbook weekend bin.  When I come across a project or something I want to do at scrapbook weekend I'll toss it in that bin, then when it's time to pack I can just pull out that bin and I'm ready to go!  Fun right!!?!?!  The other two are storing gift bags, boxes, packaging, some retired Project Life stuff.  That kind of fun stuff.

Finally the other corner of the room.  I have the other 3x3 unit and I stacked the 2x3 unit on top.  They stacked really well and they look really seamless together.  I love it!  On the left is my purple-ish bag that I take to all my classes, I box up my supplies and throw them in there.  It's really nice it's a rolling bag so even if my Big Shot is in there I can just pull it instead of carring it.  I use it at least once a month so it needs to be accessible.  Previously it was stored in the middle of the floor....usually.  I do have an IKEA rod and baskets hanging there, the stuff in those baskets are kind of for the kids. It's retired washi tape, some accessories from paper pumpkin kits and some ribbons they're allowed to play with and use for crafts.

Every cube is set aside for something.  I really love that since each cube is designated for one or two specific things I know where to look or where to go when I need something.  I may still go in and rearrange some of them if when I start working I see it's just not going to be functional for me.  That's one of the reasons I went with the cube storage, you can always go back and re-do what's not working in one cube without having to re-do everything.  Plus if I can see it and it's out in the open I'm *hopefully* more likely to use it. 

One of the things I needed new storage for was my re-inkers.  They were previously in a box but I love them stored in the wood mount cases.  You can fit 10 re-inkers, perfect for each color group!  I will have to get one more wood mount case for my extra inks (versa marks, memento, staz on, etc).  This will be really easy to use though and easy to tell if I neeed more!

That is pretty much my craft room, I didn't go into too much detail about the last set of cubes.  If you have questions or want to see anything a little closer up let me know in the comments and I'll work on another post.  That's my new room, I'm really excited to work in it.  I love the final result!  I'm so glad I finally got it done!!!  I should be back tomorrow with some more stamped projects, made fresh in my brand new room!!!!

 

Thanks for looking, see you soon!!!!