a wednesday odyssey

I love putting things together. In my next life I want to be an architect. Or a fine woodworker. For now, since I can't build additions onto my condo, I get thrills from putting furniture together. Besides the fact that one can get inexpensive things requiring assembly, it's about the only way anything larger than a breadbox will make its way into my rooms. I'm on the third floor and the stairs are a very narrow 29 inches, compounded by tight turns and all the s*** my second floor neighbor keeps in her landing.

My huge new year's present to myself is at once a chance to hammer and assemble and rearrange, and a chance to bring order to my studio. I bought lots of elfa drawers. Wednesday I stayed home from work and by 7:30 I was hopping with impatience, waiting for my downstairs neighbor to leave so I could start hammering and she wouldn't complain. Finally! I was free to wield whatever tools I liked. These drawers have metal frames and when hammering them together they sound like a not too mellifluous bell. Bong, bong, bong.... good thing I've been working out, my arms got plenty of exercise. Here's one of the first things I finished:

It's a little rolling unit with space for fiber, yarn, knitting projects, or whatever. That was about 10:30 am; I'd already put together something for the bedroom and four big frames visible at the edge of the photo. Shortly afterwards I tackled the immense task of taking things out of the studio to bring the drawers in. With the result:

Compare this photo to the first photo in the previous post. Nice, yes? I was so excited I couldn't stop to eat. I worked until three on cups of tea and a banana. Another happy addition to the family:

The desk is now situated near the window, and includes drawers. To fully appreciate this, consider that previously light from this windo was half blocked by an immense stack of large plastic storage bins. And the previous desk was only slightly more sophisticated than a door on sawhorses.

Then began the long, exhausting, messy work of reorganizing things. Taking stuff out of those plastic storage bins and reallocating it. I found things I'd forgotten I had. I'm quite ashamed to see how *many* things. Why do I have 50 zippers? Because I could never find one when I needed it, so I bought more. Howcome I have 8 spools of offwhite thread? Ditto. Why do I have two lengths of white handwoven twills? Must have forgotten the existence of one while planning the other. Why do I have six lengths of functional brown wool twill in different checks and textures? Geez. To my credit, I did throw a lot of stuff away (this scrap is roughly 2" x 3". What am I going to make out of that??) and gathered other stuff to donate. In the end, it turned out to be like this:

wall of color and texture! Wow! I am so happy. Here imagine me jumping up and down. I can't pass the room without going in to admire it. Being organized makes me feel so creative! Of course that wasn't the end; here's the desk

I am looking forward to working near the window. I now have places to put my french curves and rulers, which used to slide all over the place and get lost under piles of fabric. I can have notebooks close to hand, and patterns in the bottom drawers. Other reasons I love these new arrangements are

I can see what colors of thread I have! And I found more sock yarn. And laceweight yarn. Notice the drawer is not full. Room for more lace!

I can easily see the beautiful linen fabric I've collected over the years. May this be the year I finally sew some of it up!

And boy oh boy, I am thrilled to have a place for my zippers.

Cleaning up from this orgy of construction and reconstruction was not so fun! I must have made 15 or 20 trips up and down the stairs carrying box carcasses and packing paper out to the curb. First of course I had to excavate a place in the snow bank for the trash bags. But it was worth it. It's not something I want to do every week, but I am so happy! I love my new space! I love having a bookshelf just for textile books, and little clear stackable boxes in which to keep cotton fiber. I love being able to see my notions. Just as good is not having to see my warping sticks (they are in a corner between a bookshelf and the wall and the drawers). Everything fits, and I have so much fiber to spin and yarn to play with and fabric to sew I don't have to acquire anything for another 10 years. Having everything all clean and orderly makes me itch to get down to work and mess it all up again. I'm ready to PLAY!!

Comments

[Diana]

Nothing I love more than an organized studio. Hooray for a job well-done -- it looks beautiful!

[lynette]

omg! i'm so jealous. what a magnificent creation!

[Leslie]

looks so good you got me drooling. I love to be organized, it makes crafting so much more fun. oh and where did you find the shelves?

[Kerstin]

OMG. We bought just one of those towers for the mudroom in our last house. I cannot believe how much you had to put together! Looks great, Carrie. Now get to playin'!

[Louise]

Do you make house calls? I would love to get me wool room as neat as yours.