Bead room makeover, part 2: the purge

Source: absoluteselfconfidence.com via Gemma on Pinterest

OK, way back in February I told everyone in this space that I was reorganizing my office/bead studio. I was certain that committing to blogging about it would keep me on track and finish the task in a couple of weeks. But never underestimate the tenacity of a procrastinator! (See: illustration.)

Last month, if you recall, I blogged about the planning stage. After lots of measuring and sketching out plans on paper, I ordered some Elfa components from the Container Store's annual sale. But before they came, I had to make room for them.

This is the part that took the longest, and I think it's the step that kept me putting off the room overhaul for so long. (See: illustration.) You see, before I could put in the new Elfa drawer unit, I had to get rid of one floor-to-ceiling bookcase and move the second one to another corner of the room.

Before I could move the bookcase that was staying to its new location, I had to get rid of the four-drawer file cabinet that was in the corner.

Before I could get rid of the file cabinet, I had to clear out all of its contents. Do you see the pattern emerging?

Step No. 1: Clearing off the bookcases. Purging the books was easy--I have been destashing them and sending them off to the local library's used book store for months. A free-for-the-taking notice on the neighborhood listserve found a new home for the bookcase I didn't want anymore. The beading supplies that had been haphazardly heaped on bookshelves got haphazardly heaped somewhere else for a while.

But oh, that filing cabinet. Step No. 2: Confronting two decades' worth of "I'll deal with that later."

During my long freelancing career, I had been very conscientious about about keeping my story files organized--and most of those had been moved to overflow storage in the attic--but everything else was a mess. There were bank statements and pay stubs older than my college daughter. Warranties for products that had been junked years ago. Recipes and household hints and all kinds of stuff clipped before the age of the Internet.

Source: etsy.com via Vanessa on Pinterest

In all, I threw six or seven grocery bags of paper into the recycling bin and filled a couple of other large plastic bags with other trash. I certainly felt lighter throwing it all away. Thanks to Mandy of Beads for Brains, I have begun following the blog Clutter Busting and drawing inspiration from it. (More inspiration that action, however. See: illustration.)

I don't consider myself a packrat, because to me, a packrat is someone who hangs on to stuff because "I might need this later." I knew this stuff had to go--it's just that over the years I'd never taken time to go through it all and jettison it. (Please tell me I am not alone. See: illustration.)

What I thought would be a one- or two-day task sucked up all of two weekends. But finally I had some empty floor space in my room to assemble the first of the two Elfa units I had "designed" for myself. I'll blog about those in part 3, but meanwhile, here are some more design inspirations.

I discovered that my first bead room makeover post got a huge number of page views--in part, I'm sure, because I included design ideas like this one--a dresser with its drawers removed for crafts storage:

That inspired me to create a crafts room board on Pinterest. 


Other Pinterest boards you might want to follow are BeadStyle's magazine's jewelry/organization, Adrienne Hernandez-Lynch's Home Projects: Craft Rooms and Anne Davis' Craft Rooms or Office Spaces

Source: sewmanyways.blogspot.com via Anne on Pinterest

The pic below links to a studio conversion that Latrice Murphy of Any Occasion blogged about. She has a video tour too of how she and her husband transformed their garage into a two-person crafts space.

Source: latricemurphy.blogspot.fr via Geneva on Pinterest

And in a recent Jewelry Making Daily post, Tammy Jones interviews several mixed-media artists about their crafts space and shows off some pics. You can tell that they're real-world spaces, not designed for a home-decor catalog. Here's Kristal Wick's studio:

Don't you just love the vibrant wall color?

Source: e1.interweave.com via Geneva on Pinterest

Sister's Choice Quilts' crafts studio

Wait, there's more! Craft Gossip's daily e-newsletter recently featured a woodworking shop-to-crafter's paradise transformation that Sister's Choice Quilts underwent. I would kill for this amount of cabinet space.

BTW, I'm noticing a lot of gate-leg tables in my craft room surfing. I'd love to have room for a rocker like she has.

Sister's Choice Quilts' storage wall

And below is, obviously, an add from Michael's that I call this "craft room fiction." This is a staged prop, not a working artist's room.

Still, I'm including it because I briefly thought of using these storage units. My plan was to save up those weekly 40% off one item coupons and amass a storage system piece by piece.


But ultimately I decided that stacking the small units together wouldn't be stable and I didn't want to invest in bolting them to the wall or to one another for security.

And who know that there was a blog devoted to crafty storage?

And yes, I promise that in part 3, I'll post pics of my space.