As you know if you are a quilter or an artist or both — and I know many of you are — those activities involve a lot of STUFF. Stuff you use all of the time, like fabric and batting and thread and paint and paper and scissors. Stuff you use sometimes, like rulers and rotary cutters and cutting mats and interfacing and specialty threads and extra paint colors and palettes and sketchbooks. And then there is stuff that you might need, or stuff you bought because you saw a cool video on YouTube and plan to try one of these days when you have time, or stuff that someone gave you and you haven’t yet decided that you don’t need it either.
Oh, and there are all of the finished products. Quilts, big and small. Filled sketchbooks, artist books and journals.
It all needs somewhere to go.
In my old house, I had a lot of cabinets and closets. I didn’t appreciate how much storage space I actually had, frankly. And I had quilt and art stuff everywhere — a cabinet in the laundry room held interfacing and PFD fabric and fusible supplies. A walk in closet in my bedroom (there were 2!) held finished quilts and the batik fabric collection and batting. The closet in the guestroom held watercolor supplies and sketchbooks. And then under the beds… well, if you are an artist or a quilter you can probably imagine. More stuff.
Now, this space is different and I have a lot of supplies that need to be put away.
This new house has a big, comfortable family room and a comfortable eating area. I do not think that I need a separate living room and dining area. So my plan for the moment is to use the big living/dining room space for my sewing room and a table at the end of the room for my work desk. I think I will be able to fit my longarm machine in here, once the boxes come out and the tables are confligured accordingly. (I have been stalled somewhat as the crew that moved things in did not assemble the tables properly so I’m in limbo with them until they get some one out to fix them. They are big and heavy and I can’t fix them. Hopefully that will happen this coming week.)
Solutions so far?
1. Ikea Alex drawer units. I have four of the 9-drawer units. Previously, three were in my sewing room (1 holding sewing supplies and 2 holding paper/art/card/journal supplies). The fourth was in the guestroom/office holding office supplies and miscellaneous art stuff like extra watercolor tubes. I’m not exactly sure where these 4 will go, but I am looking forward to filling them back up once I figure out where they will land.
2. Ikea Kallax shelves with inserts. Oh, how I love the Kallax units. In California, I had a 3x4 configuration that had a row of drawers and 2 rows of fabric cube inserts. Boy, did that unit hold a LOT of fabric and paper. A dear friend (who has her own fabric and paper storage issues) took that one, and I figured I’d buy a new Kallax configuration here.
So, this past week I headed down to Seattle, picked up a friend, and off we went to the Ikea in Renton. It is the only one in Washington, with the next closest in Portland, OR. Oh, what fun I had. I came home with Kallax shelving and drawers and boxes and a few other random things (you know how a trip to Ikea goes).
Last weekend, Miss C and I spent a day assembling furniture. C says that putting together furniture is like “very advanced Lego’s” and she loves it. I set her to work on the pile drawers for 9 drawers and she was happy and very productive.
That picture up top shows where things stand right now. I know I’ll be able to fill it up fast. But just having that space waiting for boxes to be emptied into it makes me happy.
Before we had an IKEA in Portland, Steph and I used to go to the one Renton! Interesting that Miles is extremely adept at Legos and assembling IKEA furniture! Have fun getting organized.
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