My Craft Space. Who's the Messiest? - Part 1

Ok.  I'm hoping if I talk about this on the web, then maybe...just maybe I'll accomplish my organizing goal.

15 piece puzzle

I've been battling with my craft space/bed room for months(ok maybe years).  From the hard long task of rearranging furniture in my room, like a 15 piece puzzle, to moving furniture in and out of my room.  This might sound easier than it is, but it's not.  My room is a loft with a spiral staircase.  So rearranging a room in other cases could be slightly easier by moving a piece of furniture into a hallway, but, in my case removing a piece of furniture consist of removing a balcony railing and lowering furniture off a ledge(or holding/balancing it on my head to walk up/down the stairs).  In this case removing a couch, it was s a nerve racking event, even though my ex-husband made it look easy.  However, the thoughts alone of all the things that could have gone wrong were enough to not want to proceed.

Anyways.  The couch has been out of my room for a months now and it's been replaced with a 6 foot table.  It's so nice to have a table to cut fabric on, and not on the floor....that is of course if the table is not underneath a pile of vintage sheets and thrifted goods (as seen here).

My room is jam packed with furniture, covered in sewing, crafting, and thrifted items.  Let's break down what I have in one room.

• 6 ft folding table - For cutting fabric and gathering some necessary sewing tools, which at times has piles of vintage sheets, fabric and thrifted goods on it.
• Extend-able antique table (painted black) - For my sewing machine, serger and sewing notions.  Currently topped with UFOs, some fabric, and thrifted goods. 
• Tall boy - aka printer stand
• Dresser - catch all (fabric, thrifted goods, craft supplies).  I have hopes to have this area to place my finished sewn products for Etsy, and markets.
• Bed - to sleep on.  Usually half of it is covered with clothes I need to fold and put away, or fabric/thrifted goods.
• Computer desk- to house my fabric and vintage sheet stash.   This has done well for this purpose, but the task to refold and put back fabric once used doesn't always happen.  So this desk does get horrific  untidy at times.  
• The floor-  Oh!  Let's not go there.  Just use your imagination.

Do you see the trend?  Fabric, vintage sheets, and thrifted goods have taken over my room.  A little over a week ago I started really focused on trying to get things more organized (HA!).  My mom was so kind to put up a large set of shelves in the garage for my thrifted goods.  So with that set up I was able to make a slight dent in my room, by removing a good amount of stuff off the floor and other areas.  

After I got most thrifted goods out I focused on one area, which seemed like should be the most obvious starting point.  The computer desk, since I have fabric and vintage sheets over all surfaces it was imperative that I organize this area first.

As I mentioned I've been trying to get this area organized for months, so I have two before pictures of this desk.  Originally this is where I sewed, but eventually came to realized it didn't work so well with larger projects since the desk was so narrow, and some sewing projects would hit the back of the desk.   So one before picture is with my sewing machine, and one before picture from just prior to organizing all my fabric.

Before picture from the beginning of the year.

Before picture from March/April-ish..

Yikes, right?  Well here is what it looks like now.

This is an illusion, being that it's the one organized spot in my room... as of right now.

So whatcha think?  My regular fabric is at the top right, rolled inside small storage boxes.  Right  next to that I have milk glass nesting bowls that contain fat quarters, some fabric scraps, charm packs, and jelly roll strips. 

The desk portion holds all my vintage sheets, with larger scraps to the right, behind my large agua fresca, juice jar that is filled with small vintage sheet scraps.  In the two cubbies are vintage sheet pillow cases and fat quarters.

Underneath are my other fabrics, vintage, apparel, and home decor fabrics (A few years back I was really into home decor fabric with the intentions of making a whole bunch of purses out of it, but as you can tell not much has happened there.) 

The keyboard tray is where I'm storing my packing paper (for Etsy breakable orders). 

Now brace yourself.  I'm going to show you  another before pictures from months ago when I started this process.  This dresser had to be moved in order to get a couch out of my room.  That meant all the drawers had to be removed, and ALL that fabric and junk had to be placed somewhere else (bed, floor, computer desk).  Ugh!

The red things in the top right are dragon fly wings.  I made them for  myself a few years back for Halloween.  I also wore them to Fairy day at the Texas Renaissance Festival.

Look,  there's the couch at the edge of the loft ledge waiting to be lowered.  Yikes!

I don't normally see those "ghost" photo spheres in my pictures, maybe a friendly spirit was around to make sure everything went well with the couch.  

My cutting table (seen above) did get some relief when I moved my thrifted goods to the garage and organized the fabric in the computer desk.  I still have some organizing I need to do on it, but for now I'm gonna focus on the above dresser since I want to put my finished items on it.

Oh, and you think that dresser is for clothes don't ya?  Silly.  Only one drawer has clothes in it.  The others?  Well, one drawer is a designated junk drawer, one has beading supplies from when I went into my jewelry making phase, one has craft supplies, and two have fabric....mostly home decor fabric from above mentioned home- decor purse phase.)

So are you shocked, disgusted, or both?  Maybe this doesn't even phase you.  Can you beat me at who's the messiest?  I'll be unveiling the other disaster zones other the next two weeks (keeping my fingers crossed).