Okay, I admit it – my brain works a bit odd at times thanks to my “artist brain” right side brain dominant, think in circular non-traditional ways… So what does all that mean you ask? It means that as I’m cleaning out, going through things and trying to downsize in a nearly 2,800 sq. ft. house as we prepare to move into a smaller place later this year I decided to turn our dining room into my studio/reloading space for hubby.
We have an “eat in kitchen” with a smaller table in there (that table may be featured later when I refinish the table) and the large table we had in the dining room went to our kids because they needed it in the house they are currently sharing. Decent size room left empty, with the exception of a huge desk, on the main floor. Okay – desk into the living room and TV goes on it, dog kennel inside where a chair would go and the TV stand goes to the kids – that gives a totally empty “dining room” now!
Okay, still work to be done, and the kids need to pick up the TV stand in the corner so we can set up the reloading bench in that corner but you get the idea here… Gotta raise the “Game of Thrones” chandelier that I have to watch out for or I’ll scalp myself and if we weren’t renters colors and drapes would be changed. That chandelier would be gone too. LOL I still need to figure out storage for fabrics that can be swapped in and out since I have none of my fabrics in here really. I have 4-5 bolts on the top shelf of that unit, but in my old studio I had an entire shelf unit filled with fabrics. I’ve had to downsize all that and I stupidly boxed most of them up already.
Some of you may look at this and say this is downsizing? I know that room is bigger than many have for their studio/crafting space. It’s bigger than what I had for years. But for the past 8-ish years I moved my studio into the room over the garage which is approximately 300-350 sq. ft. I then overflowed that into a master suite room that was probably another 200-300 sq. ft. once I got my Schacht floor loom. Okay, so that did share the room with the queen size bed for guests and such, but still I had a lot of my weaving and spinning supplies in there.
In this “new room” I have space for cutting/measuring; my serger, a sewing machine (and I have many more of them); most of my spinning fibers; all of my threads for sewing, zippers, buttons, elastics, etc.; my Sizzix machine and dies; origami supplies; my start with resin supplies… I’ve got a 3 drawer bin and a 3-4 cubby thing with craft supplies for our grand daughter for when she comes over. I have a stool that I can sit her at the end of the one table in the foreground and let her work on things there.
Looms are still upstairs and I will need to figure out where to place them once we move but that’s a bridge to cross when I get there.
Sheers are on the way to be hung across the opening to block it off from the entryway so that I can somewhat hide the mess when we have friends over and they come through the door. It’s a start, and I’m sure as we use the room it will change and adapt to what we find we use the most and how it suits us best.
Small and Simple 