Wednesday, September 10, 2008

postheadericon CHATIQUE #12 - Organization of "Stuff"

Ok...the technique is more about bragging about my new craft-room/office, but I tried.

With the restrictions of the walls and doorways, the photos are a little distorted but you can get the idea.

My choice of plain white Formica cabinets was, fortunately, the least expensive choice from KraftMade. Their website offered a lot of help. Since my son and a buddy installed them that was a savings, too. However, the counter-top more than ate up the savings. The Formica design was not an expensive one, nor was the rounded edge or the low back-splash, but the length WAS expensive. There was piecing to reach into the corner and the right angle piece was another piece. All in all it was 19 feet of counter space. That means a lot more $$$ than 12 foot ready-made ones. Mirrored closet doors were not all that expensive, either, and they really added to the look of the room

Starting from left as you sit at the computer, I have a double file cabinet that holds all of the important papers of a home and family. My children, now, all know to look there for any paperwork. (blue for medical, green for financial, red for important papers, yellow for stuff about the home, and an ugly browinsh-green for tax stuff). The counter top over it looks out onto the deck and garden so I don't want things piled there. I have a clever basket (from Lillian Vernon) that is perfect for my decorated files. There is even a series of pockets on the front for pens, pencils and cards or note book. I have a clear desk pad on the counter top for a good writing surface. My calendar goes under and my datebook on top. The printer sits in the corner with a paper organizer under it
Behind my chair, across the walk-space from the file drawer section is a shelf section full of my photos. Yes...that is all photos. The top shelf has the boxes from Organized Photos.Com with all of my old, REALLY old, photos in acid-free envelopes clearly marked with dates and names as much as I can. A few digital albums are there that wouldn't fit into my white overheads. Next shelf down are two large acid-free boxes for the large photographs so popular at one time. Some of those babies are HUGE, but none will fit in albums or the small boxes. Under that I keep my albums of DVDs and CDs (mostly recent photos) and two more boxes of sorted and preserved photos. More recent photos (since 2000) are in the Cropper-Hopper "Ice" photo cases. The bottom shelf holds Highsmith boxes of papers, memorabilia, news clippings, and genealogy papers. I never dreamed when I started collecting this stuff it would take up so much space!

My bulletin board holds everything from recent scrapbook layouts, to pocket albums, to receipts, to my granddaughter's I-Pod I don't want to misplace. The former owner of the house left the bulletin board and I painted it to match my walls.

Oh yes...my little refrigerator. It was on sale at Lowe's one day when we were getting other things for the room and I couldn't resist. It holds V-8, string cheese, peach tea, diet Pepsi, and fruit juice. I think that may be the favorite part of the craft room to my granddaughters.

This is the computer area...where I spend most of my time in the black massaging office chair. I have a nasty nest of cables below but I am corralling them in little "Cable Captures". I love those things and they were cheap enough They are like little spools with a top that flips down over the wound cable keeping things neat and clean. I still have a ways to go under there and 7 more Cable Captures to use, then I can snap some together in stacks. I can even screw one under the desktop and snap the others to that.



This is the inside of the right half of the closet. The left half is about the same but hard to photograph. I have several Iris Carts with drawers labeled for mounted and unmounted rubber stamps, paper, cards I have received, adhesives, the granddaughter's craft things,Post-It pads, and on and on. The binders above are notes and hand-outs from classes I have taken, tutorials from the Internet, magazines and booklets, and odd and assorted ideas and techniques. The top shelf still needs sorting. On the other side are a couple of Crop-in-Style cases for transporting projects to crops or classes.



What's left? Oh, yes...the UPPERS. Well, I still need to tweak those a bit. I need a step-stool to reach the top 2 shelves so things I don't use often will go there. The DRAWERS are pretty well organized and I will photograph those another day.

1 comments:

Joan Fricker said...

oh I want to come and play in your wonderful room. Love all that white and all that counter space. I am jealous!!!

Joan

About Me

Forty Years of Scrapping

Long before it was popular, I was trying to decorate arrangements of photos and sentimental items. Here I want to share some of my personal history and more important, some ideas I have gleaned from more than 40 years of scrapping.

lauraloub

lauraloub
A granny with a camera and a computer

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