Friday, November 7, 2008

Free For All Friday: Closet Makeover

T.G.I.F.  everyone.  

It feels good to return to the familiarity of our Free For All Friday routine - especially after what feels like a busy week. Polling, voting, celebrating, blogging, gossiping, and today... problem solving.  

For those of you new to the scene, we use Free For All Fridays to talk about, and brainstorm, whatever is on the mind of our readers.  Earlier this week I got a Free For All Friday request from one of our readers.  I'm excited, because it's a dilemma that's RIGHT up our alley.  Today we will talk organization.

Let me set the stage.

This reader is planning a renovation on a fairly large closet space, so that it will accommodate her craft supplies and work records.  Essentially, she hopes to turn it into an office nook.  She has supplied us with a before picture and with the essentials for what the space must provide.  It is our job to share with her our collective wisdom. 

Items she must accommodate in her nook include:
  • wrapping paper
  • ribbon
  • gift sacks
  • tissue paper
  • greeting cards
  • supplies to make greeting cards
  • rubber stamps 
  • ink pads
  • Work related items such as files, bills, customer contact information, etc... 
Is this right up our alley or what?!?!?!?!

So, the question... If you had the luxury of renovating a space, specifically designed for your craft supplies and paperwork, what would you do?  What are some of the best, most creative storage solutions you have seen to accommodate such items?  Dream BIG.  She can take the best, most cost effective, suggestions and leave the re
st.

Before I share the picture... two more Free For All Friday points of business and then, I'll let her rip.  Normally we would be brainstorming a Secret Ingredient in preparation for next weekend's Super Bowl Snack Food Throw Down.  But, as gently pointed out last week by one of our competitors, I got ahead of myself and had you vote last week.  So the secret ingredient for next week is Peanuts.

The second item of business before I turn it over to Operation Organization is in preparation for next week's topic.  I need blog readers to identify five numbers between 2 and 63.  Everybody can post one and I'll draw five from all those suggested.

Now for the before picture of our reader's closet.
The back wall is 87" and both side wall are 49"
Some of my favorites...
  • In Kentucky I had all of my spools of ribbon organized in gutters (like those attached to your roof).  I screwed the gutters to the wall and then placed the spools down in the gutters with a length of each color hanging down.  It was perfect.  They took up no counter or shelf space.  They were easily accessible, AND all the colors (I probably had upwards of 20+ colors) made my space look brighter.  Eventually, I'll get to doing it here too.
  • Second.  I store my rolls of wrapping paper, packaging paper, and celophane in a big metal garbage can.  Ideally it would fit under the counter in my work space, but it doesn't.  Instead I keep it close at hand in the garage.  Mind you, my Christmas wrapping paper is stored separately in covered plastic containers, because I only pull them out once a year.
  • Finally, my storage space has lots of Lazy Susan's built in and I love them.  It means that I don't have things tucked away deep in the back of a cabinet.  Everything is easy to access, simply by spinning the Lazy Susan.
  • One thought... I would take the doors off and either try to get a pocket sliding door or come up with some other decorative solution.  The door frame in the middle seems like it will make everything more difficult to access.
How about all of you?  Share your most ingenious ideas or something great you've seen in a magazine, at a friend's house, or even in a store.  We'll all benefit from this!

Signing off until tomorrow, where I'll be reporting from New York and preparing to have dinner with our good friend, Maureen (maybe she'll wear her purple boots!).

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

number 21

I dont have any super great creative storage ideas, except for the little plastic 3-drawered storage bin i have on my desk is really handy for storing pens, markers, scissors, and cards.

gotta run!

Julie said...

A friend of mine has some of the 3 drawered storage bins that Cassie P was talking about ... but they are 12x12 drawers, so they fit the paper supply she has :) The drawers can serve to sort the paper in any way you like.

I pick either 15 or 54

Katie said...

I pick 23.

azlori said...

13 for my number!

Peggy said...

Ah, this is a topic I could talk about (so shut me up) ...I actually am very fortunate and the spare bedroom in our home is MY 'craft/office'... I have baskets, wire drawers, bins, bins from hardware stores, cups, shelves etc.... I love my room and pretty much know where everything is. I'll post pictures on my blog if anyone is interested.

http://nicholeheady.typepad.com/capture_the_moment/2007/07/the-new-studio.html

If you can open the above site... she and her husband made the most GORGEOUS craft room (enviable among the best!!!)... but then I found out, she was the head of a paper craft mag... and other paper craft organizations.

You can do a google search for 'My Craft room'...if you are not a card maker or scrapbooker... there is a whole other world out there... with blogs, galleries, sites, forums etc.... and people show their craft rooms, nooks, corners, closets.

If interested further, I can direct you to more sites.
prdesigns1@sbcglobal.net

Cheryl Houston said...

My number is 59.

Peggy- I am so jealous of that craft space!!! OMG! Incredible. I want to be head of a paper craft mag. :)

Am I looking at the space correctly that both doors open up into the space?

I will come back when I play Concierge after lunch.

Anonymous said...

3

I would build shelves/cubbies in to the back wall. Then, in those spaces you can put boxes, baskets or drawers that all have stuff in them.

Each spot can be labeled right on the front so you always know where things are. The nice thing about this is you can make some cubbies smaller and some larger.

I'd leave enough space on the bottom for your large items like wrapping paper, etc. You an also leave a spot on the bottom for a small, two drawere filing cabinet for all of your office stuff (if that's big enough).

Anonymous said...

I pick 8.

I UNLIKE YOUR SISTER DONT HAVE PURPLE BOOTS!!!!!!

Would you die if I bought a pair and wore them? LOL

As for my craft storage ideas.....

you can take dowl rods and put all of your craft ribbon rolls on them. Attatch them to a piece of pre drilled wood and attatce to sides and hang (like paper towel holders)

I also love the little plastic shoe boxes with the lids. I sort out my crafts ( bows, pins, glue sticks, paints, markers etc) and I put them in a box of their own and label the box. You can fit so much more than you think.

My sister in law had my brother attach a really nice wood desktop to each end of the wall and then she had purchased a spring rod (for curtains) and made a skirt to hang under the desk so she had storage that was out of sight. It works well.

I love the new stacked drawers that they make for paper. Krysten has so much for scrapbooking that she organizes it by types of paper. It keeps the paper safe and you can get them in color to liven up the space.

If all else fails call a custom closet company and they will give you the make-over of a lifetime.....

Chaotic Kristi said...

My # guess is 37

My art space comes with a 12 foot wall (who needs a dining room anyways?) so I have placed 5 of those 12x12 clear plastic 3-drawered storage bins (adjust for your width) side by side with a 1" thick piece of wood across them (distributes weight) because I stacked 5 more ON TOP of those. I then LABELLED each drawer. I sort my papers by color in most but have some others labelled TEXTURES, METALLICS, STICKERS, TEXT etc so all are easy to see/find.

Cheryl Houston said...

I like the idea of the ribbons in the gutter. I'm still not sure about those doors. Could it be made into one opening instead of two? I don't have any original ideas to suggest. Lots of shelving. Lots of storage pieces in a color that pops. I did notice as I was looking at pictures of craft rooms per Peggy's suggestion, I preferred the rooms that were painted a soft green. The accents of all the crafts really pops off the green.

In the words of Kelli Raspberry, that's all I got, how'd you like that!

Safe Journey's Claudia and fam!

Pecos Blue said...

I am trying to do the same thing. Thank you for some tips. I will come back to see what she had done.