I love looking a pictures of people's studios. I love organization so it is fun to see ideas and daydream about what the perfect studio would be. I have had people ask before if I would post photos of my space. I have always resisted because it isn't fancy and it isn't finished. I recently added a couple of new tables to my space and finally got a rug and thought, wow, it is finished. . . until I looked up and thought about the ceiling and the lights, oh and then the walls, and not to forget about the electric outlets. I guess I realized that as a space, just like me and what I create there, it will never be perfect and never be "finished". The bottom line is that as a whole, it is a place that makes me super happy and since people have asked, I should share.
My studio space is in our basement. Our house is a bungalow built in 1923. It has an abnormally deep basement, deeper than most basements for houses this age and even houses built now. The house sits up off the ground a bit so we have windows on 3 of the four sides. The front of the house has a full porch, so there are no windows on that side. A couple of years ago when we had a fire and had to move out for 6 months, we had a basement system installed so all of the walls in my studio are the white plastic wallboard that is a part of the system. The only exception is one wall that is part of a room we built for my son in the basement. We finished the outside walls to the room so I have one wall that is plaster that I could paint and hang things on. Otherwise all white plastic. Also, the contractor had to seal all of the wood in the basement so everything was sprayed with a white sealer. Add in the white wall boards, and there is a whole lot of white going on in there. Why I chose mostly white furniture in addition to that still confuses me. . .
The center of my room is where my work table is. My table is actually made up of four separate counter height tables that I have put together to create one large work surface. I like to work standing up so I love that the height of these tables let me stand. If I get tired I can pull up a stool and sit. I have four work areas. I have my computer, my main crafty space, my sewing space, and an open space. Emma calls the open space hers. She does her homework there and crafts there too.
I keep my computer monitor on a fabric place mat which makes it easy to slide forward and back. If I need a little extra space for sewing, I can either move the monitor or move to the open space. I love that it is set up to be super flexible.
The tables all had a cross beam on them so my hubby made wood shelves that would connect two tables together and use the cross beams as a shelf support. I love having these shelves. I can keep things I want to keep handy close by without having to have them take up space on top of my table. When I am sitting, they make a great foot rest. At my sewing station, if I am sitting, my foot petal sets on the shelf.
On the long wall, I have two tall bookshelves and two sections of cubes. I am a collector so they give me a lot of space to keep supplies and display things I love. The section on top of the cubes is dedicated to my vintage papergoods collection. The poster is a vintage movie poster for the movie Tammy and the Doctor.
The spinner is the one thing that I get a ton of comments on anytime I shared studio photos. This unit used to be a store display for die cuts. Remember back years ago when Making Memories sold die cuts in all kins of shapes, sizes, and colors? This was one of the displays that the stores had to sell them. Every little notch you see held a clear plastic drawer. One side has tilt bins in the top half, one size has wide drawers, and the rest of the sections have (hundreds) of slots for drawers. The thing is crazy, CRAZY heavy. I think my husband thought I was nuts when I sent him to go pick it up. No matter how many times I rearrange and redecorate, it stays where it is. He refuses to help me move it.
On the opposite wall, I have a whole wall of cubes and bins. They are full of supplies by categories, like flowers, stickers, rub-ons, stamps, etc. Above them on my one real wall, I have shelves for collectibles. They are a mix of things of mine from when I was a kid and vintage toys that I have bought.
This section of cubes divides my space from our family room. I can sit at my computer or from my workspace and look to my left and see the tv. If the rest of the family is watching tv, I can be working and still feel like I am part of what is happening. I love that. The cubes here are in kind of state of transition. They hold all of my stash of clearance aisle finds and alterable things. I am working on dwindling that stash down and am going to eventually put all of my dies there for a whole die cutting center. Ideally, I would have liked to have had bins for these cubes, but they were discontinued before I got enough. I was slowly adding to my cubes and bins a few at a time as my budget allowed. By the time I added all of the cubes I could fit in the room, the bins were gone. sigh.
I can't tell you enough how much store fixtures rock. I got these from my local store. They had discontinued a line of pens and weren't using them. I was able to snatch them up for a steal! I don't have a huge collection of pens, but enough that I needed a good storage solution. What could be better than a bin made for selling them? Most stores end up with excess fixtures and have sales on them periodically.
Finally, my favorite storage piece, my ink spinner. I found this cute two tiered wire rack at Hobby Lobby on clearance for $3.00. I found a plastic lazy susan in the kitchen section at Target that fit the base of it perfectly. Combined, they hold all of my Distress Ink pads and stains. I want and need these on my desk at all times so this is a perfect solution that takes minimal space while keeping my most used products within arms reach.
This is a little glass of happiness. It is always right on my work table and always makes me smile. All of those Idea-ology Washers, a whole case of them, were a gift from a very sweet pair of friends who sent them because they knew they would make me smile. And it continues to every time I look at it because it reminds me of the many, many things and people that this hobby has brought to my life and the ways it has blessed me. What a lucky girl I am to have this great happy place full of happy little things to inspire me to make happy little projects. So very blessed indeed.
