The Big Reveal

No this is not the before photo. This is indeed my finished project. I can almost hear some of you gasping and thinking to yourselves, "This is what she ended up with after working on it for over a month?  I can't imagine what it was like before she started."  And you would be right to think that. You wouldn't have wanted to see it before. I hated to be in there. I could barely find anything. Also keep in mind that I brought more stuff into this room from an upstairs bedroom where I kept all my wrappings and gift boxes. 

 

 

Walking into this room and turning right, this is what you see. It is a long narrow room with a window straight ahead, a sliding patio door behind me, and four windows overlooking the back yard to the left of me. There is a long work table to the left overlooking the back yard. My paper shelves are above one end of the table. To the right in this photo is a kitchen cabinet with two drawers and two cupboards and a deep counter space. My Cricut die cutting machine sits on top. Beyond that is a tall glass cabinet.

This is where I keep my Cricut cartridges on the top shelf.  The bottom shelf holds beads and jewellery findings and jewellery making tools. etc.  The two cardboard drawers on top hold sewing notions,   floral wires and tape and other non-paper supplies.

There is a desk top that pulls down to give me some space for making my jewellery. The two shelves below this pull down desk top, houses all my scrapbooks.

To the left of that tall cabinet is one of my freezers with a shelf above that to hold my craft and fabric paints, spray adhesive, Modge Podge, finishing sprays, etc. It is also where we store our extension cords. Beside the freezer, my son and my hubby keep various lengths of trim, lumber (for making guitars) and sections of board, because this just isn't my Craft room, it is the all-purpose junk room.  Between the freezer and the tall glass cabinet is a rolling cart with narrow shelves that holds a lot of specialty items. The blue shelves on top hold blades, confetti, glitter and sequins (tiny things).

I cannot make this pretty. On the floor in front of this window are lots and lots of frames that I have to deal with someday...just not now. Beside that is an area that is covered in a white tablecloth. I have placed a section of arborite on top of 3 covered bins. The bins contain photos and scrapbooks from family members that are not with us any longer. I have become the "family" historian and I want to scan these to discs or memory sticks to share with other family members. Those are long term projects. On top of the counter is a place to hold other projects in the works.

Between these last two windows are the beautiful shelves my Sweetie built me to hold my card stock and printed loose 12 x 12 inch scrapbook paper. They are sorted by colour. Yellow card stock is on the same shelf as the predominantly  yellow 12 x 12  papers.

My worktable is six feet long...plenty of room to spread out. Underneath the table are all sorts of bins and containers that contain stickers, tools, embellishments, punches, etc. I have so much stuff I just can't get rid of. I did donate a lot, including a full bin of silk flowers. The back of the table holds containers of ribbons, diecuts, adhesives, artist's brushes and daubers.

Looking back at the entrance to this room and on the right hand side is an electric fireplace. This room needs a little extra heat in the winter, because of all the windows and because it faces North. We painted the walls a pale and cheery yellow. In a few days I will need to bring in some houseplants that have spent the summer on the veranda. I will re-pot my lovely red shamrocks and keep them on top of the fireplace mantle. Above the mantle beside the patio door is a hanging bookcase. Right now it holds my hubby's Stephen King collection, but I would like to move those out of here and put my own craft books on those shelves. 

 

On the other side of the sliding glass doors, in the last corner of the room, is the stuff that does not belong to me. All of this belongs to my son and his GF, who have to deal with it by purging, storing in the basement or placing it upstairs in one of the other two rooms they have taken over. They wanted their own crafting space and I have given it to them. There is a square table under that lot. If they want the overhead shelf, which I suspect they do, I will place the 3 red photo boxes on a shelf at the opposite end of the room. They can also keep bins in the corner under the table. 

 

 

 

So I am really happy with how this arrangement is working out for me. Everything is in one room and I know where all my supplies are. There are a couple of sitting work areas and one standing work area. There is room to spread out and I can close the door and hide it all until I want to come back to it. Was it worth all the time and energy I put into it? Absolutely. I hope you are duly impressed. *laugh*