My NEW Crafting Closet

Welcome to my DIRTY LITTLE SECRET! No, it’s not just dirty, it’s FILTHY dirty!!! This is my closet behind my clothing closet.  This closet is so dirty that I literally can not believe I shared the “before” photos with you a week ago on Instagram and NOW AGAIN, on this write-up that will be perminent on my site for all of the world to see!!! 

Well, I KNOW WHYYYYYY …it was MOTIVATION.  Motivation to light a fire under my tooshie to make it a priority to get this place cleaned UP!

BEFORE

A week ago, my project closet looked like THIS! (Oh gawd!)  Piles everywhere of projects I needed to get to, presents that had to be wrapped and lots and lots of napkins to be ironed (‘cuz who has time to iron napkins?!).

You look left and there’s the ironing board that we actually use almost every day. (Yes, I am the girl who has always been know to iron her jeans. Totally cray-cray over here.)  There’s my sewing desk (formerly my husband’s desk he built right out of college) that was covered in clothes that had to be hemmed or sewn or just DUMPED there.

To the right, (now I feel like we are dancing: “To the left to the left to the left to the left. To the right to the right to the right to the right, to the front to the front to the front to the front…” LOL!) there are cubbies filled with extra tablecloths, fabric swatches, ribbon and other wrapping needs.  I’m telling ya, at xmas time, I am sitting in the middle of all of this wrapping and ribboning daily!

Finally, tucked behind the door were all my seasonal pillows and a box of sweaters that seriously got thinned out (hallelujah!).

Just a bunch of STUFF!!!

AFTER

Here it is today (drum-roll please):

Isn’t it pretty?  So calm and spacious!

FURNITURE

Before I started, my daughter asked “Are you gonna move the furniture?” I said, “No. I don’t think so.”

My husband asked, “Are you gonna move the furniture around?” My! Have they been talking?! Well, it did the trick. It made me think about the layout and what layout would work the best. What layout would making it feel fresh? What layout would function better than what I currently had in place for so many years?

BUDGET

My goal was to spend zero dollars.  ZERO dollars!!! That’s hard to do when designing any space!!!!  Why a budget of 0?  There are many reasons but the main reason was for the challenge! I wanted to use things I already had around the house.  We are living in a very unstable world right now and I believe you can do a lot with the things you have around you. 

So yes, after cleaning and sorting and organizing that huge mess, I started moving furniture around! 😁 Before wrenching my back, I took measurements of the big items in the room and played around with the layout digitally (as you saw above). 😉. When you have the dimensions of the room and the pieces in it, it’s really easy to see where all the pieces of the puzzle COULD work!

The final layout was probably the 3rd I tried. I thought I would have the desk on the “bulletin board” wall but then when it fit PERFECTLY between the funny little doors, AND there was an outlet in that corner, I knew I had to have it in that back wall where it resides now.

FRIENDS ARE THE BEST!

Back to spending ZERO dollars. The one thing that was sooooo gross and old was the ironing board cover. I put out a Insta-story on this project, stating an ironing board cover is really the only thing I needed to buy and guess what? My friend, Ashley said she had one!  She had just bought a new bigger ironing board and her old cover no longer worked. She send me a picture and seriously, I don’t think I could have found one that would work better in the space!

It was a miracle!!!! And the best gift!!! Thank you Ashley!!!

GALLERY WALL

What are all these pieces of art? Well, it’s our history. It’s things that remind me that I am a mom, first and foremost. A shadow box with a hand knitted sweater my babies wore, I love you notes from my daughter, oil paintings done by my mom’s Aunt Woodus, and that big piece in the middle: a rough draft of a past auction art. All these things reminds me of who I am, what I do, what makes me ME.

HOW TO DO A GALLERY WALL LAYOUT

Just like I do with my room layout, I decided to play around with the gallery wall layout digitally:

I simply measured the dimesions of each piece, took photos, sized them on the computer and started “playing”.  It really is a puzzle, working with size, scale, and color balance until the whole thing looks uniform.  

MORE ART

Lastly, the art on the desk: the naked lady. Oh that has a story. 🙂. I was a business major at the University of Oregon, but changed to Graphic Design in my Junior year. Smart, right??! One more year of out-of-state tuition Mom and Dad! 

One of the required classes was a drawing class. And if you know anything about art majors and drawing class, they have live nude models. Oh my word! I didn’t KNOW THIS!!! I was just signing up for the required classes for my major.

So, when the first young hippy guy wearing a thin robe came walking into the classroom, stood on the platform in the middle of the class, dropped his robed in front of us all, I about died! Men, women, big, skinny we saw it ALL. Once I got use to seeing “all the parts”, I really enjoyed the challenge of drawing every curve and shadow.

FACES ARE HARD

I have always HATED drawing faces!  It is soooo hard to draw portraits and make it look like the person!!!  But as you see here in this drawing, I didn’t have to draw the face. (WOOHOOO!)  I quickly learned to choose my easel location based on what direction the model would sit.  I love drawing backs–they are so smooth and sentual and not so IN YOUR FACE!  Her head is too small but I love the soft, free-flowing and sketch-like simplicity of the piece.  Quite fits my personality: Soft and sketchy! LOL!

BULLETIN BOARDS

Lastly, the bulletin board wall.  I love a bulletin board in any project room! There are so many useful things to do with a bulletin board. It can hold inspiration pictures. It can hold cards and photos.  It also can hold a loose note or trinket that is just waiting to be used.  These 3 boards I had collected over the years, 2 I had up in this room and one just laying in the corner waiting for a home.  My daughter helped paint the frames and VOILA!  New boards to pin and create on!

DONE!

Now that this room is clean and functioning, I have to tackle the pile of old stuff that came out of this process! Anyone for a garage sale???

DESIGN SERVICES

Have a project? Need a little guidance?  Shoot me a note (melissa@mkmdesigns.biz)!  I would be happy to help refresh your space!  Like I did with this room, sometimes it’s just a matter of playing with what you have to make the room feel FRESH and flow a bit better! $75/hour for my time and maybe a few “suggested” additions to purchase when you are ready.

I hope you are having a wonderful day!

xo, Melis