Craft Room Inspiration

I have an entire board on Pinterest dedicated to ideas for my craft room in the basement. Here's a few highlights that have inspired me and that you will see when I reveal the finished product.

Color inspiration from here:


and here:



I also have some organization inspiration from several places:








Then of course, there is some fun artwork I'd like to incorporate:







Like what you see? Then check out my entire Craft Room Inspiration Board on Pinterest:



I can't wait to start showing off parts of this room!

Don't settle for dull, live a refinished life!

Basement Craft Room Before (Scary!)

Things have been so crazy in our household lately, it's been hard to find time to blog. One of the things I've been trying to get done is cleaning and organizing my craft area in the basement. I need to get this done for several reasons:

1. Our basement flooded last year and I lost a lot of supplies because of it.
2. I have way too much stuff and I need to sort and get rid of some things. *See this post*
3. My husband has been bugging me to do this for the same above two reasons. ;) 

So at the risk of scaring everyone, I'm going to show you some before pictures. *Warning* The following pictures contain graphic images of massive amounts of craft stuff. Hoarding may be an issue. 

Yikes! I can't believe I shared that mess with you all. On the plus side, this space has good bones. The peg board and the built-in shelving were all here when we bought the house. I just need to organize this stuff and group all the like stuff together. Not to mention spruce up the place a bit! :) I'll admit, I'm almost done with this now, but need a little longer to do the sprucing part. For the next week or so, I will be showing you bits and pieces of this project, hopefully all leading up to a big reveal soon. Check back tomorrow where I'll show off bits of inspiration from my Pinterest board dedicated to the subject. 

Don't settle for dull, live a refinished life! 

Let it go!- The Crafter's Version

I have recently decided that maybe my husband's right. (Don't tell him I said that!) I have too much craft stuff. I know, I know, I just shocked you with that statement. There's probably a few of you saying there's no such thing. I used to feel that way too.

But after the flooding our basement endured earlier this summer, I was forced to throw out some supplies that were ruined. Then, I had to haul all my stuff upstairs to the garage. Which made my husband mad to see how much stuff was actually there. 

I'm now in the process of bringing stuff back down into the basement. *sigh* That's  the point when I realized I will never ever use all of this stuff. As much as I would love to, it's not all going to happen (unless for some reason we miraculously won the lottery and I can quit my day job and hire a nanny).

I've also come to the not so good realization that I've spent a lot of money on objects that are just sitting here in my basement (or garage). Dang, yo! I've got to do something about that. 

So, I'm sorting through things. Things I think are worth something but I don't think I'll use in the next 6 months are getting sold. Things not worth a lot that I don't think will get used in the next 6 months are getting donated (either to other crafters or to the thrift store). 

I need to do this both to lighten my load and possibly recoup some expenses. I also am trying to organize what I'm keeping as I go. That means finally trying to decorate my craft area while I'm at it. 

That part of this whole ordeal has got me excited! I painted my peg board yesterday and it is cute! Hopefully, I can share some in progress pics of that soon.  You can check out some of my ideas for redoing this space here. 

What about y'all? Do you feel the need to let stuff go? Or are you a keeper? (I'll admit, I'm finding it hard to part with some things!) If you want to check out the few things I've got selling right now, You can see them here.

Don't settle for dull, live a refinished life!  

Organizing the Chaos: The Hall Closet

Our house always seems to look and feel like a tornado destruction path lately. I seriously spent an entire day last weekend cleaning the kitchen and the bathroom and it looks like I didn't do anything at all. *sigh* I've decided part of the reason for this is a lack of organization. Stuff just gets shoved wherever.

In an effort to curb this before Maddy's birthday party (less than a month away) I'm going to try organizing the chaos as much as possible. I decided to start with the hall closet. Every time I open it, something falls out. It drives me crazy. This closet is next to the bathroom. In it was linens, games, towels, and extra stuff that gets shoved in the bottom like future gifts for people, wrapping paper, gift bags, etc.

Here's shot from the middle of the project. I had already taken the games from the top shelf and moved them into the guest room as well as moved all the extra bedding to the top shelf.

Notice the bottom of the closet with stuff falling out? Yeah, that's every time I open this sucker.

I put all the small stuff like washrags and cleaning rags into two baskets.

I was got these from the Dollar Tree. I was going to use them in my craft room, but decided I needed help here first.

I decided to roll the towels for a couple of reasons. First, they take up less room that way. Second, It's easier to pull out a specific towel without making a huge mess of the rest of the pile.

I took out all the gift wrap, gift bags, and other extraneous stuff to take downstairs. I put a few things such as the future gifts I'm hanging on to into this wire basket I had.

Extra blankets and tablecloths are on the shelf above that. I've also got a bucket I use for cleaning purposes in there and a few extra tote bags next to that.

Tada! An organized hall closet! It's not magazine pretty, but it's functional and organized. I feel so much better already! Now I have to do this around the rest of the house. I really need to tackle the closet in the bathroom (toiletries, hair stuff, bath toys and medicine everywhere!) Have you done any organizing lately?

Don't settle for dull, live a refinished life!