Craft Room--Before/After

It. is. finished.

Slade, the boys and I made our trip to IKEA Friday. We had a blast (a few pictures to come later), but the most important thing is that I got the furniture I wanted to organize my craft room!

Let me start with the before pictures. They're a little scary. You can see why I really, really wanted to get to IKEA and get something to help with organizing!

Here's what you would see when you first looked in the guest/scrap room.


If you were brave enough to venture further in, this is what you would have seen.


I did move some rickety bookshelves and my storage carts out (and I vacumed) before taking these pictures. I meant to take the pictures first, but I forgot until I was halfway through.


Here's the stuff that was in the clean corner of the craft room.


And this. This is what my "crafting corner" of the livingroom sometimes... *ahem*... often looks like. Like a crafting monster threw up, I know.


I knew I wanted the Expedit shelving system because I had seen it on a few other crafting blogs and it looked perfect for helping me to have my junk (I mean, stuff) right at my fingertips to insure that I would use it. However, I had read on many blogs and different threads that this was a very difficult shelving unit to put together. I heard phrases like "this definitely takes two", "you'll need a rubber mallet", "the instructions that come with the bookshelf are worthless", "you'll be sweating profusely by the time you finally get finished" and such. Yikes!

When we got home from Dallas around 9:30 Friday night, I knew Slade wouldn't want to start on the bookshelf until the next day. So, being the determined person that I am, I decided to put it together by myself. I had desire and determination... but no rubber mallet. But, I figured I could at least get it started. Slade had headed to bed around 10 and I determined to do as much as I could by myself.

Less than an hour later, I had that shelf completed. I didn't even curse once. I did kick the shelf a time or two, but it wasn't out of anger, it was in place of using the rubber mallet that I didn't have. However, after I finished the shelf, I had the sickening, sinking thought: "What if we can't get it maneuvered through the doorways and into the guest room?!?!" I decided to try to lift the 6 x 6 foot, heavy as all get out, bookshelf by myself and see if it would make it. I got it about 2 feet off the ground and decided that I didn't want Slade to find me squished underneath it the next morning, so I headed to bed, too.

The next morning, Slade lifted the shelf with not even a grunt (I'm telling you, it really was heavy, even if he didn't let it show) and we used furniture sliders similar to these (but cheaper from Lowe's) to get the shelf into the guest room.
The boys thought it was fun to go through the openings when it was in the hallway. The bookshelves on the left are the old, rickety ones.


I thought this was a cute picture... until I noticed Russ' teeth. I asked what he was doing and he said, "Did you know I could make just my two front teeth show?" Well, no, I didn't, but now I do, don't I?


I thought this was a fun shot of all my boys.


Okay, here are the after shots:

When you first look in the room


This is a dresser that my neighbor, Allison, saved from death on the side of the road and she and her husband, Brad, sanded, stained and then stenciled it. (The stencil work doesn't show in the picture) They wanted to sell it when they had their youngest, Cooper, and we snatched it up. I love it! It's very sturdy.

It holds my Cuttlebug stuff on top and random stuff in the drawers. The thing hanging from the drawer pulls is a beautiful set of picture frames (they're backwards, so you can't see how pretty they are) that I plan to hang in the livingroom... someday.


A little further to the left is the reorganized TV cabinet that some friends gave to me a few months ago. My paper rack fit perfectly on top!


Then, keep going to the left, and you see the main reason I wanted to go to IKEA. I love, love it! I was going to get a white one, but with white walls, I decided this darker one would be better. I still want to get some baskets (strangely enough, IKEA didn't have the ones I wanted) to replace some of the plastic bags/containers I have in there for now.


Then, my desk area. I don't have any leg room, do I? Oops. But, I can wheel my big machine out of the way when I sit and work.


Some of the shelves, in no particular order.






Whew.

It feels so good to have everything organized. I did discover that I have too much paper! I need to use some up or get rid of it. But, other than that, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I really only have stuff I use. Yay!

So, anyone wanna come over and craft?!