A Mini Craft Room Re-Org

Sometimes a little re-organization project can give you an unexpected psychological boost. I recently tackled a mini "re-org" in my craft room and was surprised at how much better it made me feel! 

This little project started with "just" moving a shelving unit out of necessity. Since I've been trying to catch up on my scrapbooking, I've filled up the bottom three shelves on this heavy-duty shelving unit. As a result, I've had albums on the floor collecting dust bunnies -- not where they should be!

 

Having stuff on the floor made the space feel messy to me. I've learned that I function best in an orderly space so it was time to re-gain control and get everything up off the floor, at least as much as possible.

 

 So recently I got the idea to move the shelving unit to the other side of the room so that I could fit albums onto the top shelf, too. As you can see in the first photo, the slant of the ceiling didn't provide enough height to accommodate a 12" album. The ceiling on the other side of the room is much higher.

 

Of course, the shelving unit had to be unloaded to move across the room. This was not a bad thing because it allowed me to give everything a good cleaning and finally get the albums into the right order!

 With the shelving unit on this side of the room, I can fit albums onto the top shelf.

All of the albums -- even the albums I'm working on right now -- fit perfectly onto the shelving unit...but unfortunately with no room to grow. And I have several more albums to make so I'll definitely need another unit at some point. But for now, it feels GREAT to have everything up off the floor!

 Seeing all the albums in place was a really good feeling! It can be easy to get discouraged when you are so many years behind in your scrapbooking. This is a good visual reminder that I AM making progress. YAY!

  Next, I moved the small table to the wall where the shelving unit previously sat. Now that it's there, I can see that would have made more sense to put it there years ago!

Naturally a "little" project like this tends to have a domino effect. Since I filled the top shelf with albums, I had to find space for the photo boxes and baskets that previously sat up there. I was able to make room in my cubbies for most everything. The boxes on the floor are for projects I'm currently working on.

That top shelf used to hold a lot of photo boxes which are now -- happily! -- partly empty, so I consolidated and re-labeled several of them. This task was also long overdue and gave me a good feeling for how many more photos still need to be scrapbooked.

Answer: A LOT! 😅

I shifted them into the closet where they fit on this small shelf pretty well. Theoretically, as I finish up my scrapbooking for the past years, I should be able to eliminate more photo boxes. But I must keep in mind that I have several years of photos not yet printed which would likely fill those boxes...so, it's complicated, as they say! :)

Since everything has been moved around and tidied up, I feel so much better in the space. This simple move was an opportunity to assess my progress and get my arms around the tasks that still need to be done. It's funny how such a simple little re-organization project left me feeling re-energized.

A little tidying up goes a LONG way -- physically and mentally!

jp