So excited...

Okay I am going to keep this really short because it is ever so slightly sad that I am super excited that the first pieces of furniture have gone into the new craftroom today...

but Yay! I spy furniture...of the storage kind !!!!

No such thing as too much stash?

I have always maintained there can be no such thing as too much crafting stash...but as I pack away all my stuff for the big move to the new craft room I am starting to think oh my goodness...where did all this stuff come from? 

So I think it is inventory time. I have already found doubles of BIGZ dies  and  I will need to sell the new and unused version at some point but since these are  Xmas related dies, and we are only just heading towards the New Year,  now does not seem to be a good time to list them... unless I plan to practically give them away...and I do not have any plans for that just now... I am sure that as I set up the new room I will find other doubles and quite a few things I don't and probably won't use  and I can have a sale at some point.

It is going to take about a week or so to transfer the rooms over. The painting is finally finished in the new craft room and it looks really fresh and bright. I can barely wait to get in there... but because modern inner city homes have zero space to store things when decorating, we have to get this room set up at pretty much the same time as we populate the craft room. It is going t be a challenge and chaos will no doubt reign as usual. I am optimistic that we will get it finished soon..hubby goes back to work on 2nd January and the work rate will seriously drop when that happens...

Back to packing for me....

Tied with pink ribbon

It is December and it is cold...and wet...and windy...so having windows wide open into the evening is not fun. Hubby wanted (needed) to shower off the paint but it was so cold up here he was hunting for a solution to hold the door closed...all the door furniture was removed for the painting process and the wind was howling round the door and banging it against the frame but all he had  to hand was tape which would peel off the fresh paint....he tried thread but of course that was not strong enough...and then it dawned on him that I have an extensive ribbon collection...


Not sure that he needed to choose a pale pink satin ribbon for the task but hey ho it does the job...threaded through the hole where the handle usually goes and tied to the next door along the landing it really does the trick...especially once I popped a card  'shim' under the door base too...


I guess it just goes to demonstrate that desperate times call for desperate measures... and when all else fails tie it up with pretty pink ribbon!

Work in progress

Delighted to report that decorating work has resumed - although we are now freezing because the windows are wide open while the paint dries on the window frames - an unwanted hazard of decorating in winter I guess. I keep telling myself it will be worth it...it will be worth it...it had better be worth it!

I am still no nearer to a definitive layout. I have a couple of options outlined and on paper they look good...but since furniture is not made of paper I fully expect there will be things I did not consider in my calculations and we will end up shuffling things round a few times before we get it right....but we will get it right.

I have had to add a work stool to my list of things I need to buy...I currently have two in here, one is a basic rather ancient wooden thing from Ikea, and the other a padded seat gas lift height adjustable thingy on wheels. It is really comfy...or should I said it was really comfy...but it seems to have run out of gas and keeps slowly sinking towards the floor. It was funny at first but after the tenth time it gets a bit old...so new stool it is.



I was thrilled that although Santa did not bring me any crafting goodies at all (no doubt he knows I already have way too much stuff and that is why I need this new craft room) I have been promised as much small storage as my heart desires and I did get some lovely small storage items for Christmas...

including this fabulous Vera Bradley desk organiser  - which I love but the picture doers not do it any justice at all. It really is lovely.





 and this super storage box with magnetic closure (both among the fab pressies from my lovely Mum) and they will feature in my new craftroom along with other bits and pieces I have been accumulating with the revamp in mind.

I am hoping that the white walls  and neutral wood tones will make perfect sense and that the colours in the room will come from the  various  small storage options and from the stash itself.  If I close my eyes I can see row after row of glass jars containing buttons and ribbons in every hue... Heaven!

Beaten - by an extra coat of paint...

As much as I wanted to believe it was possible, the new craft room  is not going to be ready in time for Christmas. The paint defeated us and in the end it took four coats to get perfect coverage...Of course it looks absolutely brilliant now but  the woodwork needs a second coat of gloss and the stormy weather is not helping any because we simply cannot leave the windows open to allow the paint to dry...

But our defeat is only temporary. I am using this gap in the proceedings to sort through some of things in my current craft room and I am trying my best to pack them in a logical manner that will help us when we come to populate the new room when it is finished.

Sorting through everything is a little bit like having a mini Xmas event all to myself. I have already discovered things I had long forgotten I owned  (some are still in their original packaging) and I am making a list of these things so that I can be sure to use them early in  the New Year. A craft room renovation project seems like a good time for an inventory check ..and maybe  not too far down the line I will need to hold the craft equivalent of a yard sale too...

I have been browsing the web getting lost in fabulous craftroom videos - many of them way bigger and far prettier and better equipped than anything I could ever dream of and not in the least practical in a central London home... and I have been looking at storage options until my eyes go blurry. I do not want to spend a fortune on specialized storage and plan to re-purpose as much stuff as I reasonably can. For months now I have been saving glass jars and practical containers so that I can put them to good use in my more organised craftroom. They have taken up residence on top of the wall cabinets in the kitchen and my husband was starting to despair at my growing collection. I know he will be delighted when I finally ask him to bring them down one more time so I can wash them again  and bring them up here. Then I just need to make labels and covers for the lids and they will be good to go.

I also have some files and folders ready...some are already prettified and others are still in desperate need of beautification but I plan to use up some of my long neglected patterned paper for this purpose.

The walls in the new craftroom may be white but there will be a riot of colour in there once it is filled up and ready for use.

White space

It is really strange to go into the new space now...it is so white...and I LOVE  it!!! White ceiling, white coving, white walls, white doors, white skirtings....Truly a blank canvas.

It looks great to me but hubby insists it needs another coat of paint so I bow to his superior  decorating knowledge and paintbrush power and will wait (rather impatiently) for the paint to dry...

In the meantime my current craftroom is a complete tip... nothing new there of course - but the comparison is stark.

Today I finally finished the last of my Christmas cards and all the Christmas crafting stuff has been packed away.

I have a few more birthday cards to make and a couple of other small projects to finish but apart from the things needed to do those  (because I would go crazy without any crafting to do)  I will be packing everything else  (bar the essentials) in the next 24 hours and shipping it out of the way.

The recycling team come early tomorrow so I am gathering up as many scraps as I can find to get them out of the way.

I hate packing up all my pretty papers and flowers and (gasp) my stamps and inks... it seems cruel to box them up when they are crying out to be used... but I keep telling myself how wonderful it will be when this is all done....and at  least we will have things to keep us busy  during the boring parts of the festive season.

Onwards ever onwards...

Watching paint dry...

There is possibly nothing in the world less exciting than undercoat..and yet here it is... vaguely disguised muddy brown walls under a coat of white in readiness for paint proper.

So this is how the room ended up Friday night/started out Saturday morning... and as I type I can hear the sounds of the roller being pushed across the walls and the gentle mumblings of the dear man in his painting pants* who is doing all the hard work...

I had this great plan that I would measure the dimensions of the room, including all the available wall space, taking note of  doors, windows, radiator, power sockets etc (which it seems the builders placed wherever they felt like it and possibly according to how much cable they had in their hands at the time, because there is no obvious logic behind the socket placement in this house)... and then I was going to measure the dimensions of each piece of furniture I plan to put in that room and that way I could decide where things will go and how I will build my beloved stations...

and I have discovered there is clearly both art and science to this process...which is proving to be way beyond my capabilities.... I can only get so far before the 3D aspects leave me all confuddled ... So despite all my best intentions, planning and hopes, we may still end up shuffling things round in there when the painting is done...

* painting pants are ancient pair of trackie bottoms not fit for wearing in public

Old paint choices come back to haunt us...

It has been a while  since the room was last decorated and neutral tones really were the thing back then...this was called mellow mocha and with chocolate curtains ( chocolate refers to colour not materials obviously)  and cream bedding with light wood furniture it looked good and we loved it...now with the room stripped bare it looks hideous and I am left wondering whatever were we thinking?  and the man with the paintbrush (aka hubby) is cursing it because he reckons it will need three coats to cover it...

As the hard work continues I am staying out of the way...I respond to any loud crashes with a gentle enquiry as to his his physical well being but other than that I am staying out of the way...

I may go in before the final clean up to point out if he "missed a bit" but other than that I am leaving him to it. If he has any questions he will ask me.

So my role in this part of the process is minimal. I am  staying out of the way and finishing my craft projects for this year...knowing I will start next year in my new and hopefully fabulous craft room.

So as I craft away I am thinking about the processes in my projects and the things that I need to be in place to make it all easier for me... and I keep coming back to the simple idea of stations for the various tasks...with storage alongside.

Although in my current room there is lots of storage options, much of is is hard to reach and accessibility is important, especially for things I use regularly.

 I also need to be able to see things at a glance... but I do not want the place to look like Steptoe's yard and so small storage will be important...

And  while I want it to be practical and look good, I also do not want to spend a fortune on fancy storage for crafts - why would I want to do that when I could better spend money on fabulous crafting goodies? It just doesn't make sense...

So to that end I plan to get creative with re-purposing stuff. I have subscribed for some time to a craft storage blog and get some great tips via my inbox and I am starting a board on Pinterest too. Once I have that populated I will put a link here in case anyone stumbles in and is interested.

But for now I must dash... I have to beat the postal collection service because its the last posting date today for first class mail...

Will that ever really come in handy?

The past couple of days have been quite something...we have trawled through loads and loads of 'stuff'...old files, old photos, lots of half finished craft projects, three boxes of scrap paper  and a ton of household boxes that my inner meanie would not let me throw out...

Lots of 'stuff' thankfully did not make the cut to storage and ended up in the charity shop, the recycling or in some cases the bin... I mean do I really need to keep that many cereal boxes? Its not like they stopped putting cereal in boxes or we gave up eating cereal...

One of the (many) upsides to all this sorting is that I have found things I thought were lost... some of which have been replaced  (heat gun being a prime example) but that's all good because now I have a back up...and lets face it you simply can't have too many craft tools.

I am not sure if I am ready to admit to quite how much brand new still its its unopened packaging stuff I have unearthed... but there is a fair bit and I probably do not NEED to buy  another thing until this time next year... like that is going to happen...

Anyhow...an update on progress... the room is empty, shelves and light fittings and curtain rods and blinds have all been removed. Dustbunnies have been chased out and everything has been cleaned in readiness for paint.

There is newspaper taped to the windows  for privacy ( we live in the city, houses are close to each other), the holes where shelves used to be have been filled in and sanded smooth. Dust sheets have been taped to the floor and the step ladder, Henry hoover and the obligatory black bag for rubbish along with the painting kit of brushes, rollers, paint tray etc have all taken up residence in the room

And there has been  some actual painting (YAY!!!!) not much but its a start.

Mister I can get all the upstairs  rooms done before Christmas no problem has had to admit that is not going to happen...but he still maintains the new craft room should be ready for furniture by Sunday... we shall see.

While he paints, I plan how I will lay out the new room... the possibilities are endless and I am in hog heaven just thinking about it. It may not end up being THE perfect craft room but it will be as near as I can get it to MY perfect craft room....happy days....

Lessons learned

We have been the craft room revamp route before and it didn't quite work out...The first time it was a surprise project started by my husband and he ditched two full height cupboards and replaced them with a bookcase... which while it looked lovely, was never going to work when we tried to put everything back. You really cannot fit a gallon into a pint pot...and believe me we tried!

So what is different this time?

Firstly, the craftroom is moving. It is time to admit that I have outgrown the small room. We have a second spare room twice the size of this one.  It is going to became the new craftroom and this small room will be the guest room.

We have hired a storage unit and plan to store all non-essential stuff in there until the work is complete and then we can bring it all back a few boxes at a time and put it away. The storage unit is a time limited thing and this will help us keep our project on track.

So when does all this start?

Right now. Yep! With less than two weeks to Christmas we took our first load to the storage facility last night  and plan to move the rest of the stuff over there during this weekend....ad then the work proper can begin.

I will be taking some pics along the way and I know this is going to be a stressful process so  am keeping my eyes fixed firmly ahead and  am concentrating on the end result.

My new mantra is

IT WILL BE LOVELY WHEN IT IS DONE

Once upon a time...

Once upon a time there was a small but functional spare bedroom in our house. It was a place to put the occasional guest or  the ironing before it got put way....

A few years later we got a computer, and because computers back then were huge clunky old things, there was little choice but to house it in the small spare room. Gradually the spare room  became more of a home office with a single bed at one end.

In 2006 after the great Humpty Dumpty incident the home office became  redundant and when paid work was replaced by crafting for sanity, the first craft room was born...

In the past five years it has been revamped twice...both times we realised too late that it wasn't going to work out quite the way we had hoped... and after a while the chaos reigned supreme.

Now that the craft room over-spill has expanded to include the landing and the back bedroom,  it is time for the third try...and we are confident that the third time will be the charm... We are going for a huge make over and this little blog is to chart the process.