I have quilted for years, but haven't for ages because my stuff is stored underneath the stairs, and each time I create I have to unload and pack it back up so that it remains unattractive to small hands and out of the way. For Christmas this year, Jason and I decided to gift ourselves with a creative space that we could both use (together! at the same time!), a place where we could leave projects at the drop of a hat and just SHUT THE DOOR! Trying to reduce, reuse and recycle as much as we can, we opted to scavenging around the house and Craigslist, selling some things and donating others to make room. Of course, the sunny yellow paint we bought was new! But everything else, not so much... We decided to repurpose the spare bedroom (which still has a bed, visitors welcome!) into a sewing/painting room for my sewing/knitting stuff and Jason's easel.
From this catastrophe...
To this!
I've already sewed up a few fun projects, but that is another post entirely!
Another nasty area was the downstairs 'workbench'. When we remodelled our kitchen, we moved the existing cabinetry downstairs for storage space and an indoor base from which to do household fix-its. I also dreamt of having my tomato and pepper seedlings under a proper grow light, instead of the Duplo/Ikea-lamp setup that monopolized my kitchen counters last year. So a trip to Rona to buy a florescent fixture ($18!) and some 'Gro-lux' wide-spectrum tubes, plus a ridiculous cleanup effort took this...
To this! Seedlings have never had it so good!
The last area we really needed to tackle was the girls' shared bedroom. I am merciless when it comes to toys in our house - they belong in the bedroom. I think having a few really good toys rather than a mountain of crazy toys is perfect, and I'm thankful that we have an extended family that (mostly - you know who you are!) supports this belief. Having limited storage space makes this necessity, so when we get new toys, older unused toys often make it to the Sally Ann...
Regardless, there are toys. Plenty of toys. So I wanted to open up the mostly-unused closet in their room into a 'toy nook' by cutting up an old Ikea bookshelf and stuffing it in there. I don't have a very good before picture, but many of you know the mess that used to exist! Check out the dark, toy-covered corner of these pictures.
And voila! The girls love it!
We also tackled the big girl bed issue. Kids furniture is EXPENSIVE. Instead of buying two captain's beds for the girls (to the tune of $1500!) we decided to buy a used mate's bed for Carmen ($200, phew!), reuse the toddler bed for Keira and make use of some under-bed storage ($4, thanks Ikea!) for sweaters and bigger dresses. Their old white dresser made it down to the creative space, to hold art supplies, yarn, fabric, etc.
And now we have two silly monkeys, jumping on the bed!
And yes, they've BOTH fallen off and bumped their heads!
2 comments:
Your spaces look great! There is something really cleansing about the start of the New Year and tackling clutter to make open and bright new spaces.
Oh, now you've done it!
In a jealous fit, I too am cleaning my house and organizing my spaces!
Damn, Callie, I was quite happy sitting on my butt!
xoB
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