Clean Out and Tidy Up!

The holidays are finally behind us. The tree, lights and decorations all carefully packed away into boxes waiting for the cold, dark days of next December. Although it's still the dead of winter, I'm ready for some "Spring" cleaning.

Judging by the ads from the local stores, I'm not the only one feeling the need to organize and spruce up my house. Each year I plunge into at least one room or closet clearing out the unused, unwanted and obsolete items. The pile of stuff always amazes me!

But to organize you have to have a plan - let me show you what I accomplished last year.

My craft room was begging (screaming actually) for a complete overhaul...there were piles, bags and stacks of stuff all over the place. Fabric, paints, recycled glass, bits and scraps of wood, shells, and buttons. The neat-nik librarian in me said - ORGANIZE and label everything!

First stop - my local big box store for lots of stackable, clear plastic shoe boxes on sale in January. I bought a case of 24. I also found a few larger clear plastic boxes for oversized items, plus some half-sized boxes.

Next was a trip to Ikea where, armed with room measurements, I found reasonably priced bookshelves that perfectly fit my room.  I chose Hemnes bookcases - three 36" wide and one 19" wide. Since the room doesn't have ceiling lighting (who in their right mind would build a house like this!) I also bought bookcase lighting. The Stockholm lighting was perfect. The lights can be coupled together so one switch turns them on together, and they extend over the bookcases to perfectly illuminate the contents.

After setting up the wall of bookcases, I got to work sorting the "stuff". For the sake of downsizing I had to be brutal with deciding what to toss. Will I really use scraps of ribbon 6" long or less? How about those paint tubes that are starting to dry out! A week of sorting, tossing, donating to Goodwill and "gifting" friends resulted in a totally workable and neat system. And best of all the room has been easy to keep tidy.

I used a labelmaker to label the contents of each box. But because the contents of each box are visible it's very easy to put my hands on the item I need. When I'm done, I pop things back into their containers.

You can see by this photo that I share my work room with my spatially-challenged husband. His craft models and stamp collections are slowly getting organized too, and we still have plenty of room on the bookcases to expand our hobby space.

The hardest part of the entire project was convincing my husband of the need to spend money to organize the room. The total cost was a bit pricey - just under $700 for the bookcases, lighting and storage boxes -but the room is now a joy to work in for both of us.

Next topic - How do I keep my ideas organized?!

Happy crafting - Maria