industrial crafting.

For those who’ve been around here for a while, you will know we recently did a pretty major renovation/extension to our house. And while the space is lovely, and we really like the design and layout, I find myself increasingly frustrated. 12 months on, and we are still working through finding the ideal storage solutions for some areas, and tidying up some decorating bits and pieces in others. The storage thing is bugging me. I feel like I am drowning in a tidal wave of “stuff”. Partly because we have a lot of stuff (ie, we have three children, a compulsive crafter/bookhoarder, and a man-of-the-house slowly losing shed space to storage needs), and partly because we simply don’t have the appropriate storage for the stuff we have. Coming back from holidays, there were two rooms I walked past/into, that literally made me want to cry. Had I been by myself, I think I would have sat down and bawled my eyes out, I was that overwhelmed. The first was my studio. Starting life as the office of a studying accountant who sometimes crafted and had a heap of books, it is now the hub of my creative life. I craft in here. I run my photo business from here. I blog in here. The small people craft in here. And the makeshift hodge podge of storage simply isn’t working. I’ve sat down and drawn up plans, which my father has very graciously taken to turn into two purpose built cabinets. Though, to be honest, when he said “sure, just knock me up a plan with measurements and I’ll make what you want”, I don’t think he was expecting shelves and boxes and drawers and drop down tables of every configuration. So that’s the studio, in progress.

The other room, and this I’m sure a lot of mums can relate to, is the toyroom. It’s a new room, and truly, I love it. It’s a double bedroom with builtins, and on one wall, my long-suffering husband has painted stripes, 2 foot high, and then built me the children a massive wallmounted chalkboard. There is a cute little wall decal, and some boxes mounted to the wall to serve as bookshelves. We KNEW this room would be the problem room. Three children, two boys, one girl. They have STUFF. So we hit up IKEA and bought a heap of tubs, which we (and by we, I mean he) built runners in the wardrobe to fit them. Toys packed in, all well and good. Except at least half the boxes are too high for the children. And some things don’t fit. Never fear, said I! We’ll rotate toys! No access to the cupboard by small people…which meant the tubs lived on the floor…you can see where this is going, can’t you? And I’ve had jack of it. So Wednesday I bought two flatpack cube shelves, and assembled them. Now the small people have a)easy access to the toys on rotation, and b) no excuses for toys on the floor. Part two of the toyroom makeover, was a little project I’ve been thinking of for a while. So yesterday I raided the shed, and armed with MDF, a saw and a power drill, set to work, and built this little rack, to mount on the wall to hang their dressups on.

What do you think? I think the white needs another coat, but I’ll do that once I’ve mounted it and puttied it up. Not bad for a couple of hours work, and ALL BY MYSELF. Even if I did need help to work out the keyless chuck on the drill. But I did it! Now, just to decide on the perfect wall for it, and find a stud to attach it to. That’s my job for this afternoon, I think, while the small people paint. Our busy morning finished with a trip to the craft shop and the cheapy shop – craft shop for some thread for me, a little embroidery project inspired by Meg, and the cheapy shop for some canvases for the children, one each, and I’ll going to let them loose with the same colours that the room is painted in, to mount on the one blank wall in the toyroom. Should be fun. Might try and squeeze in some sewing time to and get a bag done, so I can play with the new orange fabric sitting on my desk. So much creating to do, so little time. Thank goodness tomorrow is the weekend and I can get my craft on. Friday, you’ve been kind so far, let’s rock the daylights out of this afternoon!