Organizing Your Living Space to Suit Your Art and Crafting Needs

The first set of suggestions in this article are for when you have a room or part of a room available for your arts and crafts workspace. The second set are for when you have to get creative about household space that already appears to be occupied with other functions. I have two areas in two different rooms which we set aside for creative activities.

One room, 9'2"x10', is the office/sewing room/music room. The office, which is in one side of one room has a tall bookshelf which is used as an organizer for supplies, a file cabinet, a tower of drawers with shelves on top, and the desk with the computer and multi-all-in-one machine. On the other side of the room is my sewing table with the sewing machine, and next to it is another file cabinet with sewing supply drawers on top of it, with wall shelves further up lined with wooden crates that are filled with fabric and sewing supplies. Between these
two areas are my two keyboards, one on a stand and the other on a bookshelf filled with sewing books, music and DVDs.

The other room is the studio/guest room, 11'6"x10'. On one side is the futon set up as a couch and where I put my suitcases when I'm packing for a trip, or gifts when I'm preparing for an occasion. On the other side of the room is another tall bookshelf unit filled with art books and topped with boxes of crafting supplies, in front of it is my easel and next to it is a window with two shelved plant stands on which I keep supplies in decorative boxes.

Beyond them is my artist printing press which is next to the closet which is filled with a chest of drawers that holds the majority of my various art supplies. The closet also stores extra blankets, a suitcase, all wrapping supplies, all of our Native American regalias and my Rainbow wardrobe.

Above the printing press there are wall shelves lined with wooden crates that are filled with crafting supplies. Between these two areas there's an art table on one side with the Rainbow camping supplies underneath with rolling duffels, and on the other side, next to the door is a military file cabinet full of art and craft supplies topped with drawers and a paper file filled with more arts and crafts supplies and my basket of paint brushes and painting knives.

When we moved to this house in 2002, we gave up over one room's worth of usable space and the studio/guest room was our son's room. We didn't have the two tables that are in the office and the studio, then. My husband built them after our son moved out. We had one keyboard then and it was in our bedroom under a window, along with the sewing machine which was behind the rocker. It was used on the dining room table when I needed to use it. The sewing supplies were in my closet and in our huge cedar chest at the foot of our bed.

How did I do this. I did it with careful planning. When we lived in Southern California I had to fit my office, studio, baby's nursery, library, linen closet and our bedroom all in the one bedroom and closet in our one bedroom apartment and still be able to navigate without getting stuck or having bruises.

I learned this from early in our marriage when we lived in a 45 foot, one bedroom fully furnished trailer where we also had to put all of our furniture from our Hawaiian condo and still be able to get around from room to room since the landlord had the shed full of her stuff and wouldn't allow us to use it. We had permanent bruises from above our knees down from colliding into everything in the trailer. The only safe rooms were the kitchen area and the bathroom.

When we moved to this house, knowing that some of the missing room space would be in our 25 foot hallway, I had to get creative about how we were going to fit everything in, especially since I would have one whole room to do it in and some small areas in the rest of the house. All I kept hearing was, "Since you can't spread out, you
need go up and around."

The following list details what I did to help keep our home livable and sane and still manage to have everything that I needed to be easily accessible:

1. Unless the area you're planning to use is small and the supplies aren't that extensive, do not, I repeat, do not move anything until you have made a list and have diagrammed where everything will go, unless you truly enjoy torturing your menfolk by having them constantly moving furniture from one ineffective location to another.

2. Make a list of every item that will be in your arts and crafts area or room and their specific dimensions.

3. Use the list to make diagrams within the dimensions of the room of where you plan to put every single item.

4. Physically block out your diagrams in the actual space. Then you will see how accurate your diagram is and what changes you need to make.

5. If you find that you're floor-space-poor like we were then as a part of your diagram, you need to include wall space all the way to the ceiling, and under-space that you may be able to use, such as under a desk, under a keyboard, under a bed, or in-between-space such as between pieces of furniture or in corners or edges in closets, or above space as in on top of other pieces of furniture or wall shelving attached high on the walls
as open storage or inside space such as baskets, tin boxes and decorative boxes used as storage in plain sight.

6. Then when you have everything blocked to your satisfaction than move everything to where you want it. After you've gotten everything where you want it you may find that some items, even though they may fit, don't really serve your needs as well as they could and you may need to move them. But you won't be moving the entire house around.

Originally, when we first moved into this house with just one room for everything, the shelving unit, the printing press and the military file cabinet, in the studio, were all where the sewing table, second file cabinet, small bookshelf and keyboard are in the present office and the wall shelves were on both sides of the room. The sewing supply drawers were on top of that file cabinet with other things in them and the art supplies in the chest
of drawers, which was our son's, were in boxes in my closet and in the drawers in the office.

I'm listing both of the ways we've had this house organized for a reason. It's so that in case you have either situation, you might find some useful ideas for your own home.

The following suggestions are for when you can't use an entire room or even part of a room:

We've had friends who couldn't organize their space the same way as we have.

1. One of our friends put his office, with desk, in their walk-in closet along one wall between the hung clothing, under the light. He had narrow closet drawers next to it which contained his supplies.

2. Another had her office area in a nook off of her kitchen, with shelves above the desk on two sides.

3. And another had their sewing area in an armoir in a public family space, I don't remember which room.

4. When I lived with roommates I only had my bedroom to work with. I usually had a desk next to my bed with my supplies in the drawers or in a box nearby. I used a chair for an easel.

5. I knew another person who had his desk/drawing table in the living room with a shelf alongside it with his supplies on those shelves.

6. My cousin has a low bookshelf next to her living room chair with her craft projects on the shelves. She also has decorative boxes along one side of her chair containing her supplies. She works on the projects while watching TV or just sitting in her chair. She keeps the rest of her supplies in the closet in their computer room.

The point is to have a space that's set aside just for your arts and crafts supplies and if possible a place to also work that's set apart from the regular household functions since household messes don't blend very well with arts and crafts messes.