For those who don't have a seperate craft room; I need a little help....

[Suzanne]

When we moved from GA to here in TN I lost my craft room. Now I have to make a space in the corner of our bonus room since our new home doesn't have an extra room that I can use for this.

For those who don't have a seperate craft room; please give me your best suggestion or advice for setting up a corner of another room to use for my creative space. I haven't even unpacked all my craft stuff, because I don't have anywhere to put it all. DH is building me a bookshelf that is 6 ft. by 6 ft. and I need to buy a desk or a table to use. I need to get back to doing my stamping & scrapping soon.

Thanks

[Joelyn]

I have this extra closet area with sliding wooden doors, that I claimed as my area. I took the sliders down and attached the door to the wall with hinges and put two legs under the door and I had an instant table. I put removeable shelves in the closet space and filled it with all my stamping things. It really is nice and the doors make wonderful tables. Its my nook in the house for stamping.
Good luck and sounds like your DH is a jewel!

[auntie65]

If you need more storage space, try some short plastic drawers that fit under the desk. My DIL uses a door for a desk top and metal filing cabinets to legs. My DD uses one of thoses shoe holders that attach to the door to hold small things like embellishments, decorative scissors, extra tape runners, etc. They're clear plastic so she can see what's in them. I think there may be a thread about organizing that might be of some help. Just a few suggestions.

[raven.fan]

Hi,
I to do not have a seperate craft room either. Mine is a a corner of a family room. What I did was bought a banguet table from Lowes, very sturdy.I covered it with a pretty floral table cloth so it would look nice. On top of it I kept all my supplies I use all the time. Underneath the table I bought large plastic file holders to store paper, and embelishments and the things I pull out when I needed it. I even hung a hanging light over the table to save space instead of a lamp. It's great, I have plenty of room to work. One thing I did purchase at a garage sale was a 1950's china hutch for $10.00 not really too big, I painted it pink and in that hutch are all my stamp sets. It also has draws to store punches and ink pads. Hope this helps a little. Mea

[photocropper]

I am in the same boat as you right now. I have lost my space and I have yet to figure out how to make any other space work yet.

I have seen some nice corner desks - since you are setting up in a corner - also a nice screen would be good that way if it is a mess and you did not have time to clean it up you don't have too since it will not be behind a closed door.

I personally can not spend any money on my area right now so I will have to work with what I have.

I have 2 tables that I have been using for "my area" and a ton of other stuff that I need to weed through and downsize now that I do not have a designated area. I was thinking of using the under the stairs space to store some of the things I do not use that often and only keeping out the things that I actually use all the time. We do not have a bonus room at all so I am either going to have to claim a space in the master bed room or my dd's room (her room is larger than the living room! BUT I do not want kids in my things all the time so that is an issue)

I am interested in what others have to say. I will look through the gallery and see if there are any other ideas as well........

[go90feet]

Don't know how much $ you have to spend, or time to wait, but I had my dad build me a custom hutch to fit in a corner of my family room. My hutch is 7' tall, 4' wide, and 3' deep. I have plent of space! We built plently of cubbies for storage baskets that go up the height of the hutch. Underneath, I have dividers for my papers. There are doors on the hutch that swing out, along with some shoe bags that I hung over the doors that hold things as well. I just close the doors when I am done (or too tired to clean up afterwards!)

In all, we spent about $250 on lumber and supplies. Of course, if I had to pay someone to make it, it would have cost A LOT more. Because of the size of the hutch, we made it in three sections.

I would say that some type of hutch or closet would be your best bet.

[ppofct]

go 90, can you post a picture

[Suzanne]

I don't have a lot of money to spend. I have a bunch of the Sterilite 3 drawer things (8 1/2 x 11). DH is going to build 2 of the 6 ft. by 6 ft. book shelves for the bonus room. These will fit on each side of the big window. Then we are going to put the desk on one side for his computer and something on the other side for my craft space. I want them to face out into the room so that our backs aren't to the tv and other stuff going on in the room.

[photocropper]

I was facing out in my last place toward the living room (it was the formal dining room connected to the living room) and I have an old dinning room table (from Mom and Pops log cabin) and I just put my rolling cart under one side of it and had the bookcases behind me. I put the benches (from the table set) on one side of me(against the wall) to put my paper on so it was at my fingertips and a couple of closed boxes to hold the things I used often....underneath I had drawers that held my stamp sets so they were out of sight too. If you are concerned about how things look from the other side then you could maybe use velcro or even staple some nice fabric on the front of the desk, table or whatever you decide to use.....

[arcopes]

My stamping area is in my guest room. My TINY guest room. I have a queen bed in there, so you can only imagine. I have pictures, pm me if you want me to e-mail you them. I think I've got a TON of stuff in a very small ammount of space! Plus, it all has to look good, because who wants to sleep in a yucky craft room?????

Alison

[stampin8mom]

Hi, Suzanne,

How are you liking TN? Hope you're settling in okay. I sure miss it!! Just leaving TN myself, and having a very limited craft area, I had to be really creative in my organization. Shelves under the table, shelves on the wall, plastic stackables, etc.

You mentioned facing your table into the family room, but I finally switched mine up against the wall and I actually could store more stuff because then I could "build" shelves on the back of the table with 2x4's.

Hope you find your "space" soon.

Kathy

[Suzanne]

Hey Kathy, so far we are liking TN ok. Only been here 3 weeks, but everyone has been really friendly & helpful. Trying to get settled in has been hard. A couple of times I have looked at dh and told him I was ready to go back home now. I'm sure that once we finished gettting things unpacked & can use the bonus room & the garage for more than storage things will start to feel more like home here. (I hope so anyway).

[PaperRapt]

I have a corner of our basement. I use a breakfast table called a "nook". The bench pieces hug the walls in an "L" shape, a separate wooden table sits in the "L". The benches have storage within them. I like that I sit facing outward, not in toward the wall. Any place that sells dinettes/kitchen seating would have this type of table.

HTH
Annette
http://stamponthis.com

[Motherof6]

I too have my little craft corner. I just posted pics in my gallery today. I love it! Only 3 more kids to get rid of (13 yrs at least) before I get my own stamp room woohoo!

[scrappinchick]

Before we moved here, I had a corner of the dining room. I used an old trunk to store supplies, bought a small bookshelf, and had plastic rolling totes that i could move into the closet when i had to put the stuff away. I used a card table to work on, with a thin piece of wood on it for stamping evenly. I often used my chairs around me, the floor, etc. lol

[propecia]

I have pics in my gallery of my craft corner. It's in a corner of my livingroom.

[stampin8mom]

Glad you're there, Suzanne. Being on this end of the move to OH, I know what you mean about getting settled in. Hope it can happen for you soon. Takes awhile for me to get my bearings so I don't get lost every time I leave the driveway!

Hang in there!

Kathy

[Gladd-lyStamping]

Being a military family, I have never had the luxury of additional space. I know many of you can relate - military or not.

I have also claimed one of the hall closets (I believe it is suppossed to be for linens) as my craft closet, and just carefully measured it all and have been purchasing bins that fit into the closet like a puzzle. It works for the most part, but I'll admit that about every 3 months I have to totally redo it, as I keep accumulating more supplies and I need to keep making adjustments (not that anyone else here knows what I am talking about - LOL). I will totally outgrow my closet by November, at this rate!

Recently I received a terrific recommendation, as my 45" dining room table is my crafting table (and my desk, my family meal place, etc). The recommendation is to get a rolling cart with drawers for my standard supplies I use every day (i.e. adhesives, scissors, stampin' scrub, etc.) and then cover the cart with a "fancy" cloth or tablecloth to disguise it as a table. My friend recommended to even put a couple of decorations on top to disguise it as an intentional side table and not as a covered up cart. I will be trying this soon!

For your bookshelf, baskets are the rage and you can find them anywhere! It can look really attractive, but I can't find baskets large enough for my papers. (So if you find something, let me know so I can get it also). Hope you are settling in ok!

Best wishes.....
-Lori

[born_to_stamp]

Somehow I missed this thread when it first came out, but I am glad to see that it is around again. Suzanne, so glad you asked this question. My family and I will be relocating the end of the year beginning of next and I know that I am probably going to loose my stamp room. I have enjoyed reading how others are combining their stamp area into other rooms - I have a feeling my stamp room is also going to be part of the guest room. The ideas will come in handy once I see my new space.

[Suzanne]

Thanks everyone! I still haven't gotten everything put away.

Dh built me some shelves that are 6 ft x 6 ft and I still don't have enough room for everything. I am trying to sort through and get rid of some stuff. And I have to figure out how to condense down some of my stuff. The storage containers I am using are taking up too much space. I need more bang for the buck & space. Also still looking for a desk/table to use.

[GGstampin']

I do have a nice big craft room- but I keep all my stamp stuff seperate. I craft other things in my craft room and keep my stamp stuff upstairs as that is where I do classes and workshops- much easier than running up and down. (and I can get away from the stamp stuff if I get overwhelmed - this happens lol)
Anyways for the craft room- I hit Home Depot- they have this shelve unit- it is about 6 feet by 6 feet I think- it has about 16 cubbies in it- I keep stamps in the top three so far and then catties- the next row is all cs- and the next row is magazines and similar books for scrapbooking and cardmaking- then the bottom four cubbies are all extra stuff like scrap papers in baskets , cardsamples in baskets- etc. I also have one of the large plastic drawer things lol- then three big tables to work on. I think i paid 99 for the big shelve unit and it works great so far! Now if I could get the rest of the house organized that would be great! lol
Happy STampin'

[GGstampin']

oops - this shelve unit is in my stamping area- not my craft room.

[janicemarz]

I am having to give up my craft room to turn it into the nursery. I have two fairly large size closets in that room and that will hold all my stuff. as far as stamping goes...it will be the dining room table.

I am happy to see this post too...

[born_to_stamp]

GGstampin' can you post a picture of the shelving unit you bought? Please - seeing pictures helps me! Besides I just like to see how everyone orginzes their stuff! I am always on the look out for better orginzation ideas

[Stolynn]

There's never enough space................................

[thuskins]

My craft area is in the kitchen, there is an extention of the cupboards that was originally a computer desk. We already have a larger corner computer desk so I got that as my craft area. The keyboard tray is wonderful because as much as I spread throughout the kitchen I always can use that extra area that I know will be clean. I also have a two year old so child locks are very important to me. With my two year old daughter it is incentive to keep clean otherwise it won't be mine anymore. I have glass jars that I use for embellishment and sort them by colorgroup. They are the size of a large soup can but if I were to replace them I would buy glass speghetti jars. As long as it's sorted by color family it looks nice and not cluttered. I did the organizational challenge (helped a lot) my essential tool box is a vertical steel silverware holder and I have a wicker basket hanging on the wall that I put things that I'm still working on that I don't really want to put away yet. My clean freak husband is satisfied.

[fionna51]

I still have a craft room--but I also quilt, and admittedly that takes up the most space. For my stamping, I had a workstation built for me by a friend--it resembles this station, because that is where I got the idea.
http://www.for-keeps-sake.com/Cabinet.html

My desk and hutch are the same, except instead of shelves in the top, there are 72 of the sterilite drawers--in slots in the hutch top. I did not keep the plastic "cabinet" the drawers came in. I do not keep my stamp sets in the plastic cases--they take up way too much room---(horrors!). My drawers have dividers for the sets in them, are 8 3/4 by 11 1/2 by 2 1/2, and have a 30% picture of the sets in each drawer on the front. I can fit an average of 6 sets in each drawer, and I can see exactly what is in each one. The drawers also hold all of the stamp pads, some paper, all the tools, etc. The roll-out carts hold packages of paper, boxes of envelopes, paper cutters, etc.
I have 2 narrow bookcases-one on each side, that hold ALL of my books (for all the crafts I do), scrapbooking supplies, stamping idea books, a few oddball-sized supplies, etc, etc, etc. Needless to say, the whole thing takes up 7 1/2 feet of wall and when closed is very neat and tidy looking.
Someday when I get to the point where I can breathe {LOL} and finish painting the doors, I plan to take pictures and post them....but then we are planning to move and my arrangement will change a bit in my new space--I will probably just wait till then....I'll edit this when the pictures are posted!