Situation

This room needed to function as a laundry room, crafts and storage area as well as the production area for a home-based business. Although the home is beautiful, it is small craftsman built back when closets and all rooms were very small.

Challenge

My client has a popular line of gorgeous baby accessories including burp towels and bibs but does not have a lot of room to create and sew as the orders come in.

Solution

We divided and conquered this room by first determining which activities were most important within this space. After deciding that the home-based business needed as much space as possible, we re-contained and moved every unrelated item up and off the counter and into the side cabinets. We decided which shelves should hold which craft based on the frequency they were needed. The more frequent gift wrapping and card-making supplies were stored in the shelves at eye level.

Once the counter was clear, we were able to sort and organize all fabrics and place them within the sewing zone to the right and under the counter.

As you can see in the photo below, we still have an area for miscellaneous projects and tools in the side cabinet.

The one thing I love about craftsman cottages is that once you can organize and look beyond their small size, they often have exceptional built-in storage areas!

Situation:

This garage was used for watching tv, working on crafts, and an extra playroom. At the same time, it had to be used to store the usual garage items including holiday décor, extra entertaining supplies, etc.

Challenge:

In the beginning there was no storage in this garage, only some assorted furniture, TV and a desk. As with many garage conversions, this space had to accommodate many different types of activities and serve as a comfortable retreat /playroom for the two boys and a space for mom and sons to create craft projects and read.

Solution:

My client had wall-to-wall cabinets installed along the longest side of the garage without windows. The cabinets made it possible to create order with the deep freeze storage items like holiday décor and also made a place for sporting equipment and extra entertaining items to live while not in use.

I shifted furniture around to create zones for each type of activity. The desk was moved to the back wall so that all craft supplies were in the same zone with small table and chairs positioned for action.

The lateral file cabinet was moved next to the door into the house as this contained the permanent family records.

The large cube shelf was moved behind the couch to create division between storage and TV zone. All extra toys were grouped together ‘like with like’ and stored in baskets behind the couch. As the boys decided to play with different activities, they brought out one basket at a time and learned to put the first one away between activities to keep chaos at bay.

Situation: This laundry room also served as a craft room. The previous owner had designed a built-in work space with cabinets but there were too many items to fit inside the area until they were better organized.

Challenge: There were multiple crafts projects Read the rest of this entry »

Many of my clients are stuck in the muck of their scrap booking projects. Scrapbook inertia is a common phenomenon. It often comes from wanting to make your pages perfect or simply not knowing where to begin.

Perhaps you can’t figure out how to Read the rest of this entry »

Situation: Even with many storage containers, the crafts supplies were still out of control and taking over their designated space within the home office.

Challenge: The room was used as a crafts room and also a home office. When I was called in, there was not room to do crafts and barely any space to access  the desk.

Solution: I rearranged the crafts area and the furniture so that all cabinets and supplies were moved into the corner. We donated the extra rolling carts and stowed the useful remaining rolling carts under the table. This opened up the table area for actual crafting and made it easier to get motivated and actually create scrap book pages.