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Tidying My Work Space

Tidying My Work Space

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We’ve had new windows put in this week, so everything had to be moved out of the way, mainly to one corner or the sides of each room. Of course, I decided this was a perfect opportunity to have a clear out and rearrange things whilst putting stuff back, so I ran out of time to make something new to blog about. But since it was partly Ruth’s post which inspired me to make the most of my ‘studio’, I thought I’d take some photos along the way. It’s been less than 2 years since I last re-arranged my space (here’s the post), but I’ve ‘aquired’ a lot more stuff since then! This is how my storage tubs were back then:

They’re not much different now, though the paint which was in tubs on the left now have their own bookcases (they grew too!)

On the opposite side of the room I had a few tubs and my carder on an old toy chest. As the tub stacks grew, I used an old wardrobe on its side to store them, I can drop a curtain down and hide them now.

My carder feels more secure up there on the top too:

I previously had an old computer desk and pine table in the centre to work on. I got a 6ft fold up table to replace those. Both set ups had storage underneath, but they took up far too much room for what they contained, so they’re now storing general rubbish and old toys in the hall cupboard 🙂 All that’s left from underneath is the tubs which contain my netting:

There’s so much room with everything gone and the table folded away:

My shelves are pretty much the same as they were. I got a new bookcase and swapped the huge old telly for a stereo so there’s a bit more room.

I’m sure it won’t last long having the table folded up, and I still have so much to put back, but at least for now the clear space has the potential for creativity 🙂

Rearranging

Rearranging

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I took over one end of my living room for felting/art and crafts a few years ago when I realised it’d never be used as a ‘conventional’ living room again, though to be fair, it’s never been what most people would call conventional anyway! Alhough it was better than what I’d had before, it wasn’t brilliant. I was putting something away last week, shoving things out of the way, leaning over boxes to get what I wanted and thought there must be a better way to organise the room so I’m not contorting myself all the time. I tried to picture things moved around, and had an idea of what I wanted, but thought I could do with something to help me visualise it better. I suppose I could have found some fancy site online or something, but went for simplicity: paper, pen and tape measure. I taped a couple of pieces of paper together to make a scale outline of my room, then measured everything in it and made cut-outs. Then I put them in the places where they were:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAYou can see there was space, but it wasn’t very functional, and since no one ever sits and watches telly, it seemed such a waste that there was a large amount between the couch and tv which was unusable. I started to move the outlines around to where I wanted them, and was quite surprised that they fit almost exactly how I imagined:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThat was easy enough, I thought, so shifting a few boxes around should only take a few hours. Ha ha. About 3 and a half days more like it. But it works, much better than I thought actually. There’s a bigger area where the free space is ‘consolidated’. And it was nice having somewhere to sit and rest and flick through my plant books in between moving stuff. This is the table end, with my carder and some fibre boxes on the left, and wool and some more fibre boxes on the right:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThese are the boxes on the right, I inherited the red box, it has wheels, I wish all the bottom ones did!:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAAnd these are the book cases. I have another on the left, you can just see the edge of it and the corner of the couch (and yes, eagle eyed Brits, that is a 1960’s candlewick bedspread as a throw!) and the other book case actually has books on it. I bought the middle book case as a replacement for the little one on the end, but that soon filled up:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAAs you can see, I have a nice collection of shoe boxes. I could make it look neater and buy some more plastic storage tubs, but it seems so wasteful to recycle cardboard, and then buy plastic, so I’ll go for messy over tidy. It hardly matters when it’s all out across the floor anyway!  The big yellow Dunlop box contains my tubs of threads and yarns scraps, filling up nicely for the 4th Quarter challenge. How do you organise your studio and felting supplies? Do you have any tips for being tidy or efficient?