Craft Corner

I have been dreaming about a craft room for years.  We keep talking about "when we get a bigger house.." but actually looking for something keeps getting pushed back and pushed back, for various reasons.  We really do love our little 1920 farmhouse, it's just so tiny with 3 kids now, and there is NO storage!
For the last couple years I've been doing all my sewing at the kitchen table, which means all my tools, and the machine, and everything has to be gotten out when I want to work, and all put back away before I can get out the next meal.  It wasn't so bad when it was just Steve and I, and we could eat in the living room whenever I was involved in a project, but with 3 kids needing 3 meals and 2 snacks everyday, this becomes tedious very quickly.
Well, when I started thinking about another year or two using the kitchen table and daydreaming about a craft room, I decided something had to change now!  So, while Steve was gone last week I did a little rearranging, and here is what I came up with:

My new "craft corner"

I shared a little bit about it last week in this post, but I'm so excited that I want to talk about it some more!

Here's what I did: I moved the table and hutch in my kitchen to make this space for this little desk, and put up a big cork board to hang all my project ideas and sketches, photos or fabrics that inspire me, (JL's artwork) etc.  Now instead of notebooks overflowing with scraps and pieces, I have it all out on the board where I can see it!

I bought a 5 drawer organizer for all my little gadgets and things, and filled the desk drawers with other bits and pieces of my stash.  Now instead of trying to keep all my things in boxes that I had to dig through all the time, it's all right at my finger tips!

 

All this, and my sewing machine always available too! Now a 15 minute project really takes 15 minutes, instead of an hour: 20 to get everything out, 15 to do it, and 20 to clean it all up again.  I can't wait to show you all the projects I'm working on now that sewing is so easy and fun again!  I still use the kitchen table for cutting and laying out, and all that still has to be moved for every meal, but it's a lot better than it was!

  "Nice," you are thinking, "but it looks awful cluttered having all that mess out all the time."   I thought of that too, which is probably the biggest reason I haven't done this before.  But I came up with something that I think will work.  I painted the back side of the cork board with chalkboard paint.  Now when we have a big group of people over (like this brunch we hosted last weekend), I just flip the cork board around to hide all those messy scraps, move the sewing machine and organizer into JL's room, stick all the other bits into the drawers, and I have a nice sideboard for food and a board to write "Welcome" or the menu, or anything that strikes my fancy. 

(There's nothing written on it here because the paint still hadn't cured enough to use it!)

So actually, I feel like I have more room in the kitchen now!

Have I mentioned how excited I am?  It's not the craft room of my dreams, but it's great for the time being!  Now if only we could figure out where to put all the kid's clothes...

What about you?  Do you have the ideal craft room?  Or do you have to work in a tiny space too?  How do you handle it?  I'd love to see ideas for small spaces, as well as pictures of those great big gorgeous sewing rooms I know some people have!  It gives me things to daydream about...