Spring organizing

 

Last week I came into our computer room/office when I saw this, and realized I needed to do a little organizing. I looked at all the books that we have and realized that most of them have not probably been touched in several years.

 

I went through the books and did some downsizing, ( I know after looking at this picture there are still many books, but some of them I could not part with, so they are still here. I decided to put my pictures on the top shelf, ( the top shelf held my hubby's Louis L'Amour collections, I think he has every single one!) I asked him if he ever reread them and I knew the answer.  He has a mind that can remember every detail in a book after reading it just once.  He loves Louis L'Amour but after reading it once he can't read it again because he knows what is going to happen. He couldn't part with them so I boxed them up and they went in the archives. ( in the loft in our shed.)

 

Because I re arranged the book case I had to clean off the desks, ah, I feel better! We spend so much time in this room and it becomes the clutter catch for many things.

 

I even organized the hubby's side. (I wish I would have taken a before pic.)  He usually doesn't like my organizing because he says, he has organizations in his massive piles of papers.  I organized everything in the file cabinet though and if he remembers what paper it was, it has a slot in the file cabinet.

 

Hers and His, we each have our own with our own printers and it is a great arrangement. (You may notice a pile of books under my desk, I'm not stock piling them but decided to sell some of them on E bay and see what happens.) I'll let you know what sells.

 

More books under the other side, some are sold and some are waiting to be sold.

 

There is just something about organization and Spring, they kind of go together.

 

I probably need to organize the closet. (That's why it is closed.)

 

There is a "trickle affect" in organization, once you start, you see so many more opportunities to ORGANIZE!

but it feels good to have this space a little more organized!

Organization and disclaimer

 

They say that creative people are sometimes disorganized and a little messy, well , I am a little embarrassed to show you this picture because, I must be very creative!  This was my craft room before Christmas, ( I am really trying not to look at this pic, because it is quite disturbing!)  I have a craft room in my basement and I am so grateful to have it but because it is out of the way and sometimes out of site, and because of that it becomes a little disorganized, (who am I kidding, A LOT disorganized!)  I decided that I couldn't work like this any longer so I was on a quest to become more organized.

 

Here is my after picture and let me tell you that this transformation did not happen in one day!  I decided to move my machines to the other side of the room, ( before they were behind the door) and with 3 machines it was a little crowded.(Yes, I use all three machines.) One is my embroidery machine and although it does everything I kept my trusty Bernina, (which I have had for more than 30 years)  I mainly use it for sewing on leather and heavier materials.  Then of course I have my serger.  With this arrangement I am easily able to move from one machine to the other.

 

In my organization I went through all of my baskets and got rid of what I don't use, (and found things I didn't remember having.)  I put all alike things in the baskets and labeled them with tags.  I thought I knew where everything was but when my daughter came down to make something, she couldn't find any thing!

 

All alike things in one basket!

 

I organized my thread and ribbon and it makes it so easy to find what  color I am looking for.

 

Went through all of my fabrics and got rid of more, then put similar fabrics in their rightful stack.

 

Flannel

 

This is the other corner and now looking at this picture I can see that I probably still held onto too much fabric, I think I will be the winner when I die!

 

Love the convenience of this, there is a disclaimer coming about the thread in the window though.

 

All of my other thread, (some I have had since time began) in a drawer next to the sewing machines!

 

Elastic and bias trim in another drawer.

 

Bobbin thread.

 

Zippers!

 

Buttons on cards!

 

Doesn't this just make you want to sit down and sew!

 

More ribbon, tulle and tape.

 

More buttons in an organizer, (I love buttons can you tell?)  Now to tell yo about the disclaimer of this story, It's kind of sad.  Yesterday I went down to go exercise and when I got to the bottom of the stairs, I started screaming because there was water at the bottom of the stairs!  It has been raining here for 3 days and a lot of water has come down!  This is quite unbelievable though because at this time of year we usually have 6 feet of snow!  Because the ground is frozen the water has no where to go but down to the lowest point and because there is a ditch above our house, it got clogged and the water came pouring into our back yard.  The lowest point of the house is the window wells, they filled up and because the water had no where to go down it came through my house.

 

So, yesterday this is what my craft room looked like. (Can you see the water running down the wall and over the counter?) Yikes! it was bad!   See those bolts of fabric on the floor, they were a little wet and muddy, because with the water came the mud!  I have been washing fabric for 2 days now.

 

It was not a happy day.  But with the help of neighbors, family and friends we got rid of the river coming through our house.

 

This morning it looks like this, (I don't want to repeat yesterday ever again.)  So the disclaimer is this, if you are more organized and a river comes through your house, it is definitely better that you had the room looking like this.

 

Instead of 

 

This!!!

Can you imagine what the cleanup  would have been like if my room looked like this!

I do have a goal to be more organized this year, this was a little set back but maybe just what I needed  to get the rest of the basement organized, (even if it was forced!)