Making Changes

The process of getting rid of my storage locker has resulted in some big changes at home.  I needed to find somewhere to store seasonal decor, artwork, suitcases, and the genealogy research of my Mom's until I find a better spot for it.  But with tiny rooms, no garage, and an already packed garden shed, there didn't seem to be many options.  Then my sister made a passing comment about the possibility of turning the guest room into a storage room, that it might be a better use of space, since the guest room only gets used once or twice a year when she visits.  

That comment spurred some thought about possibilities and I spent  time sketching room layouts and trying to figure out how to fit the storage shelves into the guest rooms.  In the course of our discussion, we had noted that the guest room gets the best light in the house.  And so, to make a long story short, I decided to move my office/study into the room with good light, and turn the studio/sewing room into a three function room; sewing, guest, and storage.  

The above sketch is the final plan I came up with.  Note that the study is 10'-4" x 9'-0" at the largest and narrows to 8'-0" at the doorway. The Sewing/Guest/Storage Room is only 11'-0" x 12'-0" and that might be slightly generous.  

Here is the Studio's office wall as it started off last year.  I loved the lights under the shelves and having the printer on the shelf above.  It did get pretty cluttered as I worked on various projects.  

This is looking the other way, when it was nice and neat and clean.  I obviously wasn't working a project at the time!  

My son-in-law got me a new monitor to help me when working on the magazine. My small laptop screen was far too small.  While I have an iMac computer with a beautifully large screen, it is old and not up handling the multiple large programs I run simultaneously while working on the magazine.  At the moment, I use it almost exclusively for scanning slides and photos and organizing the family photo/genealogy archives onto external hard drives.  Eventually, my goal is to get down to ONE laptop with a large monitor and a couple of external hard drives and get rid of this mess of multiple computers/laptops/hard-drives and mouses that I currently have.  Regardless, the new monitor helps enormously but required a different desk configuration, so we tried this corner arrangement which has worked very well!  I loved being seated where I could see out the window when I worked.  

The guest room had beautiful light and though it was small, it was a lovely little room.  

I did move things around to make more space and my sister loved staying in this room.  The view isn't much though as the window looks out at the side of the shed.  Hopefully, that will change soon and if all goes according to plan and I can afford it, there will be a new garden this spring where the shed currently sits and the shed will move about 10' away.  I'll share more of that when the time comes.  

And so the move began.  Total chaos.  If you want to see just how much stuff you have, switch rooms or move.  Ugh!  I did get rid of about 1/3rd of my fabric and I have a dozen jars of sorted buttons to get rid of and hopefully more in the way of trims and ribbons and other bits I probably will never use.  

And so I shifted things into the new study/office space.  Here you can see the "Great Photo Project" taking up the entire tall shelf and the corner shorter shelf.  Someday, I'll finish getting all this scanned and we can get rid of all those boxes of photos and slides and I'll have lots more space!  The other shelf to the left has my watercolor supplies and now some scrapbook supplies in addition.  

Once we got the desks moved in, it started to feel a bit more like an office space.  I desperately need some wall shelves and better lighting over the desk though.  Right now, I am running back and forth between rooms to access the printer and needed office supplies on the shelves in the other room.  I also need to change the rug.  I love this needlepoint rug, but it's not sturdy enough to handle the office chair running back and forth over it.  And I don't like having the cold wood floor underfoot when I'm working all day at the desk.  

The new sewing/guest/storage room is making progress as well.  Once I get the office shelves up, I'll put my stitching supplies on these shelves and neaten things up.  It still looks cozy and is functional for sewing.  I'll do another post once I get the storage shelving moved from storage to show you how that works.  I have a canvas or muslin curtain planned to allow the shelves to remain accessible, while still having a nice looking room.  I'm thinking those panels may actually make a nice design wall from time to time, something I've always wanted but never had space for! 

Mushu likes the new layout and it's now his second favorite place to nap (after my bed).  He also like knocking things off the shelves, which means he doesn't get to nap in here very often!  

So, other than getting the newest issue of the magazine ready for release on January 30th, this is what I've been spending my time doing!  Next update will hopefully show the new shelves in the office and the re-decorated shelves in the sewing/guest room.  Moving the storage shelves will take a bit longer as there are things there I need to get rid of before I can move them into this space.  But oh, how nice it will be to have everything here and not have to drive an hour to get my seasonal decor or a suitcase or a painting for the walls.  And to not have that additional bill each month will be a huge help as well!