Shared Office and Craft Room | Spring 2017 One Room Challenge | Week 4

This week’s focus has been on two areas: Decluttering and Organizing. The room both looks and feels very different after this week’s effort, and I’m pleased with the amount of things I’ve gotten rid of and the more organized look of the shelves. It’s still a work in progress, so when you see the pictures you’ll probably think I’ve lost my mind. You’ll just have to trust me.

I’m not kidding.

Try focusing ONLY on the shelves. Trust me, they look awesome.

Would it help if I reminded you that before I gave this room any attention, it looked like this?

I thought so. 🙂

Here’s a close-up of one of those shelves now.

Pretty? No. Organized and functional? Yes!

Decluttering
I realized early this week as I finished up the second window cornice that I was putting the fun crafty items ahead of the most important item on the checklist. I decided to hold off on making the curtains or anything else cute and fun and unnecessary until I have gone through the whole room and gotten rid of STUFF.

For the past two days, I have been doing some major clutterbusting. I’ve gone through my fabric stash, old textbooks, electronics, magazines (so many magazines!!!), craft supplies, books, and other random things. Some items have gone to consignment or Goodwill; those that are not worth donating have gone into the recycling bin or garbage can. Getting rid of things (even silly little things) is challenging for me, so this has been a rough week of letting go of stuff I don’t need (although most of it is still in the garage waiting to be transported, so technically I haven’t really gotten rid of it all yet).

I struggled with getting rid of the big box TV with the built-in DVD and VCR that I bought in college, but the amount of space it cleared up makes me happier than keeping it did.

The toughest part will be the ‘I Don’t Know What to do With These Things But I Can’t Get Rid of Them’ Box, where I toss items that I just can’t make a decision on yet. But with the motivation that I get to work on a couple of fun projects when I’m done with it all, I plan to work my way through the rest of the STUFF this weekend.

Organizing
As I’ve gone through the STUFF, I’ve also been organizing the built-in shelves that line the room. I’m less focused on getting them to look picture perfect than I am on making them work for us and creating a functional way to store the things that need to be stored. Using crates, bins, and boxes we already had lying around, I’ve corralled paints, jewelry supplies, sewing patterns, markers, cards, photos, etc. into a more organized system.

Progress!

To wrap my head around all the different categories of items I needed to organize on the shelves, I drew out a rough diagram of the empty shelves and wrote in the different types of items where I thought I wanted them to go. Starting with the drawing really helped but I’ve done some rearranging, and I’m sure it’ll change even more as I continue to go through the ‘I Don’t Know What to do With These Things But I Can’t Get Rid of Them’ Box.

My fabric is finally organized! It needs to be arranged better at some point, but for now I know where everything is, and it’s well contained on only two shelves now!

Moving the items around on the shelves (and getting rid of probably 100 magazines – I’m not kidding!) has allowed me to relocate some of the stuff from my desk, leaving more room for the notebooks and papers I need within reach while I’m working. The goal is to keep these things all in the craft cubes when they’re not in use instead of ON the desk.

Something else I did was get the Mister to help me turn my big craft table. I absolutely LOVE this change. I can walk around the table without bumping my hip on the corners! I can use it for its intended purpose of making things (like those cornices I mentioned earlier)! It’s amazing what a big difference such a tiny change can make.

Since I already ‘did’ this room in the One Room Challenge once, I set the goal of spending less than about $100 more on it than I already have. One really great thing about this week was that neither decluttering nor organizing costs anything, so I’m still safely under my that number!

Next week, I’ll share two awesome custom pieces that I’m really excited to work on. The first is a stand to go over my laptop to free up some space on the desk. Since I use a monitor plugged in to the laptop, the laptop just needs a place to sit out of the way, and the new shelf should accomplish that goal.