Organizing the Studio

My studio is a mess.

My studio/office space is an average size bedroom that I share with my husband's office. There will be no Before pictures here, it's too embarassing. So, picture half a room, filled with quite a lot of fabric, a desk, worktable, ironing board, buttons and beads and threads (oh my!), and lots of half-finished projects. Snippets of thread and fabric on the (oatmeal berber) carpet. Desktop littered with receipts. Desk drawers filled with - well, it's not junk, it's just non-current stuff that needs to be stored elsewhere. I have piles and piles and empty files. I have use of the entire closet, and that's fairly well organized but I can't get to the closet because of the storage boxes on the floor. Organizing expert Peter Walsh (check him out on Youtube) says that nothing should be stored on the floor. He's right, and yet I've been unable to achieve that so far.

So, the reorganization has begun. Yesterday I moved things around a bit and brought in a dresser that we had been storing in the garage. This will store all the fabric for my business, once it has been laundered. This also creates a limit - if I can't fit anything else in a three drawer dresser, it's time to stop purchasing AND list more things in my Etsy store www.reclamationtextiles.etsy.com . Pretty simple math - sell more before you buy more. Sounds obvious to many, I know, but I know that if I don't set a visible/physical limit for myself, I will keep acquiring and fill up the studio to the point I can't work in there. Again.....

Yesterday, I also boxed up the non-current items that were in the desk drawers, and now I have my business records, mailing supplies and general office supplies in the drawers. I am in the process of sorting the linens, trims and fabrics by color into the dresser.

I promise to post pictures when the project is done, hopefully by the middle of next week. I know that having things better organized and having empty flat surfaces will make me so much more productive.