Studio organization: Works in progress storage

On the hunt for some new furniture, I hit the antique malls for the first time in maybe a year! I was way past due. I've been looking for a buffet-type piece of furniture to use in our living room, but I came across this instead.

Over the past six months or so, I've been slowly building my studio, while also trying to work in said studio. It was a mess, and the whole thing was just leaving me feeling disorganized and crazy.

To get some clarity, I made a list of every function I needed the space to perform. Work space, materials storage, finished goods storage, packing space, etc. And then I realized I had a big hole in my process: I had no storage area for works in progress. Everything was just everywhere. Painted frames drying wherever I could find a flat surface, which, in turn, gave me no place to work. It seems really obvious now, but I just hadn't broken it down like that before.

So anyway, when I ran across these units with perfectly sized shelves, I lunged. At $40 each, they were easy to say 'yes' to. Because if you've ever priced letter sorters or furniture with a bunch of shelves or pigeonholes, you will know that $40 is a bargain. And forget about finding anything made of wood. I bought one, and then went back the next day for the other.

These things are SOLID wood and super heavy. And also handmade and a bit rough, but I sort of like their garagey character for now. The space is still a work in progress, but I feel like all the functional components are finally here. Let's hope I can share some prettier pictures soon!

Working on a workspace + etsy dreams

Last fall, we closed in an old garage door that led directly into our basement. It was non-functional and not at all insulated. Frigid in the winter and I swear you could feel the wind blowing through.

Old boarded-up garage door (November 2012)

Other than making it more energy efficient, the main reason for fixing up this space was to turn it into a workspace-slash-studio. A dedicated space for painting, building, taking photos, etc.

Wall up, pre-drywall (November 2012)

The last time I showed this space here, there wasn't even drywall up. It's up now, but like the rest of the unfinished basement, it's not taped and mudded. (A previous owner started finishing the basement, but didn't finish finishing the basement.)

So I'm starting to create my basement workshop. Looking at these photos, you probably wouldn't have guessed anything had been done at all. Really, it's not so pretty at this point. But considering what it looked like not even a year ago, I am allowed to call this progress.

I was going to paint this concrete wall behind the work bench white to freshen things up, but. It's already sort of a white-washed light grey, and I have grown to love the chalky texture so I'm keeping it the way it is.

Even though it looks a mess, things are coming along. It needs more organization and some prettifying, but I'll get there.

You may be wondering why I need a workspace like this. I'll let you in on a little secret: I'm currently working to start my own etsy shop. All my legal start-up paperwork is in order, and all I'm doing now is using every spare bit of free time I have to make things. It's slow going, though. Given that I'm on mom-time, my free time really doesn't add up to very much.

I'm not quite ready to show my wares here yet, but I will divulge more soon. I'm trying to act all confident and business-lady-like, but truthfully, the thought of opening this shop is making me so nervous for all the normal reasons. (What if nobody likes what I make? etc.)

Any etsy shop owners out there with tips or advice on calming those fears? I've read just about every article out there about opening a shop and I feel prepared, but still the nerves won't quit!

A gift for me: A new work table

Before I get too deep into showing you what I made for Christmas gifts, I thought I would quickly show you one of the awesome handmade gifts I received.

My dad made me this gigantic counter-height work table. It's two feet deep and six feet long! That's some serious surface space. My small workbench has become so crowded with supplies it makes it hard to spread out. I need to reorganize all of the spaces, a project for another post, but I'm so glad to have a new huge clean surface. Even if it is in our grubby unfinished basement.

Painted workbench: Before & after

Clearing off my basement workbench exposed a ton of ugly stains. If there are stains and paint spills on this surface I at least want them to be my stains and paint spills. So I decided to do a quick paint job to freshen things up.

Before

First, I vacuumed the entire surface really well to get rid of all the yucky basement dust. Then I filled a couple of the really deep holes with some wood filler, but didn't take too much care to improve the rough finish.

Before

I knew the raw chipboard would soak up the initial coats of paint like a sponge. I didn't want to squander "good" paint or primer, so for the first two coats, I used some flat gray paint I had a ton of.

Because this space doesn't get any natural light, I wanted to paint the surface a light color to brighten it up. For the final three coats, I used some leftover almond semi-gloss from the bathroom walls.

Before

After five coats of paint total, the mystery stains were pretty much gone and I had a clean surface to work on. I love doing projects like this that have such a huge payoff for such little effort. And if the finish gets too junked up, I can just give it another coat.

A space for painting (and other stuff)

This is workspace #2 for this week. Not exactly as pretty as the other one, so sorry if this post bores the pants off of some of you. But read on if you enjoy semi-dramatic before and after photos.

Before

This basement workbench area was here when we bought the house, and I'm only slightly embarrassed to say that I've never used it for anything other than storage. Before we moved in, I had envisioned working on projects here, but that never really came to pass. It had become a dumping ground for anything tool and/or paint related. And a couple of old shower curtains. And replacement windshield wiper blades. And other random objects I didn't know what to do with.

Before

It was time I cleared the surface so that I could use it as a dedicated project space where I can paint things and leave them to dry. I think everyone was getting a little tired of having to move projects-in-progress off the dining room table before we could eat dinner.

I bought some extra pegboard clips and accessories to get a lot of the stuff up on the walls and out of the way.

I know it looks like I just moved those two large boxes from the surface to the floor, but I assure you, they have completely different contents now. There are still a few things from previous owners of the house hanging around like extra tiles, grout, etc., so I boxed those up in case we should ever need them.

I also still have handful of hazardous items to recycle (smoke detectors, CFLs) until we find a place to take them. And I have to figure out if my 10+ year old tubes of oil paint are still useable (and, if they are, the likelihood they would be used).

This area definitely still needs a little visual TLC, but right now I'm just glad to have it functional and somewhat organized. Now that I can see the surface, I realize what poor shape it is in. I may paint it so it doesn't look so much like a parking lot. I'm also going to migrate some more of my paints and glues to this area, freeing up valuable real estate in other parts of the house.

A space for sewing (and other stuff)

Check out my cutey-cute little sewing space in our newly carpeted office. I wanted to set up a dedicated space for my sewing machine. No set-up time equals more time for actual projects!

I built this little cubby shelf out of four wooden shadowboxes from Michaels. I've had them for quite a while, but never got around to using them for anything. I glued them together and then gave the whole thing a coat of semi-gloss paint. I made sure to hang it high enough so that I could slide the sewing machine underneath it if I want to use the table top to work on other types of projects.

This pretty space will certainly inspire me to tackle more sewing projects!