Home Office/Craft Room Organizing

Our bathroom renovation has been kind of all-consuming these past couple of weeks, but I did get one evening off from bathroom stuff, while we waited for the asbestos test results on our vinyl flooring to come back.

So I took full advantage of the break to work on something with a little quicker payoff, my first steps at getting my home office/craft space organized!

This is what it had been looking like since we moved in, cluttered, with opened boxes of craft supplies on the floor that I've been rummaging through, making things messier and messier.

Sewing machine hogging my cutting mat space, and yes, I was even using a table lamp to precariously hold my x-acto knife. All I'd really done with this space so far was to paint the walls and trim, set up my desks, and just kind of live out of moving boxes.

(Sorry for the darkness of the above two photos, they were taken during a brief mid-day power outage we had--gotta take advantage of down time from work any way I can with as busy as I've been lately!)


Well, I take that back, I had done one other thing, make little chalkboard signs out of dollar store frames for some baskets I'd purchased. But I hadn't done anything with the baskets since I put signs on them a month ago.

But it's amazing how much you can accomplish in just one evening, when you're itching to work on something that doesn't involve mold or gaping holes in your floor and walls! And now things are looking a whole lot better in here, especially compared to those depressing "before" pictures.

With just some cleaning and organizing, and hanging curtains, a transformation is easy. Seriously, it never fails to amaze me how much just curtains do for a room!

Now I've got my work space all organized, with my work computer and monitor on the right and my personal computer on the left. And of course, the view out to our backyard, where sometimes I can spot baby deer while I'm working.

I've dedicated a whole side of my desk for my sewing area, but when the sewing machine isn't in use I can just scoot it back and have lots of free work space over here as well.

And my cutting mat gets its very own space now too. Now it will be easy when I'm scrambling to make someone a card before running out the door or shipping off a gift--I won't have to dig out my cutting mat anymore.

But my favorite part of all of this organizing is my new craft supply wall!

I just mounted three IKEA LACK shelves into the studs, and instantly I had a perfect space to store all of my new craft supply storage baskets. I can't tell you how much of a game changer this is for me! It is so wonderful to have everything up off of the floor and desktops, freeing up a ton of floor and work space. Everything is all neatly organized in their own little baskets, and my chalkboard signs will make it easy to find exactly what I need for each project. Plus, I think it's a pretty cute little display, with all of the green baskets and a couple of rattan ones thrown in, to tie in with my lamps. :)

Now I just need to find the time to work on some crafting projects, so I can actually put my newly organized craft space to use. But even if I don't feel like working on something up here, I can always just grab the basket of supplies I need and easily take it downstairs to work in front of the TV too.

So, not too bad for just an evening of work! I won't show you the other side of the room though, because the closet side is still a huge mess. Some day I'll get to building room dividing clothing cabinets, but for now I'll just keep hiding everything behind a screen room divider.

On this side of the room I still need to put some art on the walls on either side of the shelves and above the sewing machine. And make a slipcover for my desk chair in a fun green pattern. Plus, I want to make a ribbon dispenser/rack thing. And a whole lot of other things! For now though, I was just happy to take a break from our bathroom project, and get some semblance of organization in here. It makes for a much better work environment, since I spend 8-10 hours at this desk everyday!

Have you done any organizing of your craft supplies lately?

(Oh, and if you're curious about any of the furniture or lamps in my office, I've got links in this budget breakdown post that I did when I set up my office at our last house)