Room Re-Organization

This was L-O-N-G overdue, but it got delayed whilst waiting to have the shelves up etc etc etc.  Anyway, here are some before and afters, including what's in the drawers. Well, I'd want to look in yours....:)

Starting at the top with what used to be a blank wall space between my framed degree certificate and the old fabric bins.   Here you can see how it used to be and how it looks now.  A lot less bare, isn't it?

Then we come to what's in the drawers.  You've seen the first drawer already, the one with all my metallic threads in.  Under that comes the general sewing drawer into which I also stuff my paper scissors!  They need a new home since their hook fell off the wall and I haven't got around to re-doing one.  Er-hum..

The third drawer contains my fabric colouring things - small tubs of silk paints, fabric paints and fabric dyes are in the box at the back.  The other two boxes contain tubes of acrylic and watercolour paints, although I do have other watercolours that are artists' quality in my white drawers.  Under that in the fourth drawer is card making materials.

Here are some of the drawers in the old Ikea wooden set of drawers on the shelf.  There are lots of highlighter pens and erasers in one, pencils and cheap coloured pencils in the other (with a big tin of Derwent Coloursoft good quality pencils just visible above), and there are two drawers to be seen underneath, one contained multi-coloured biros and one with various gel-type pens.

Moving down now to where the old bins were and where there is now a large 4-drawer tower, here are the general before and after shots.

Contents-wise, the top drawer has all my counted thread embroidery fabrics in, so Aida, Jobelan, Hardanger & Oslo and linens etc.  There are also white, cream and black fineweave fabrics including silk for surface embroideries at the front.  The second drawer contains general coloured fabrics.  You can see silks at the front of the left hand row of pieces and cottons etc behind.  On the right hand side of this drawer you can see rolls of cotton fabrics I got in Taiwan as well as some rolls and other pieces of sheer fabrics and some other, larger pieces of cotton and cotton mixes.

Drawer three contains my kits - the few that remain after my having sold quite a few in recent e-bay sales, some sewing paper patterns and what I call auxiliary fabrics such as Romeo, interfacing, Bondaweb and also stuff like felt.  The bottom drawer is where I keep fancy fabrics and is mostly made up of offcuts that I bought in Taiwan supplemented by some offcuts that were given to me by mill workers when I was 12-ish and my dad rented a workshop on their top floor.  I was given lots of ends of reels of Lurex and some scraps and small pieces of the fabrics made with it.

And here are two quick shots, before and after, from the right hand under-desk area.  Both the plastic and the wooden drawer sets are now out and in a more user-friendly place and the boxes at the back have been whittled down - two are on the new shelves and one was emptied into the bottom drawer of this plastic unit.

So, now I feel much more comfy and really enjoy working in there.  I don't stitch in my study, although I do design in there, when relevant.  With the exception of the current project bag and my old wooden workbox, everything else is stored in here at least.

I hope you enjoyed this post, 'cos it took forever to get the photos lined up right, and they may well have gone pear-shaped on your screen anyway, as it'll be different from mine....

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2012