Organization Plus

After my father died, and Mother was ill off and on for several months, we decided to move her to our home. We have a nice walk-out basement that is finished as a MIL apartment, complete with a living room, small kitchen, dining area, bath, and bedroom. That's one of the reasons we moved to this house - in anticipation of one of our parents moving in, too.

Of course, we didn't expect it to be as soon as it was, and when we moved in, I made this area into my sewing stewdio. I had custom cabinets built in for all my tools and supplies and "resource materials". I couldn't very well tell her that this was *her* space, and then use it freely as if it were mine, could I? I wanted her to feel that she hadn't given up her independence AND privacy, so I moved a few things upstairs to the sunroom along with my sewing machine. We moved a large sofa out, and moved a recliner there, too, so Mother could sit in the sun whenever she wanted while I sewed . Mother lived with us for about 18 months before she moved into a retirement community not far from here.

When she moved, I was going to move all my things back downstairs, but after a bit of thought, I decided to just stay put. I love watching all the birds and the changing angles of the sun and weather. Here's how the sunroom stewdio was organized for maximum usage. Unfortunately, I missed my storage cupboards and how I used them downstairs, and they just couldn't be repeated here in the sunroom. I still keep my "resource material" (aka stash) downstairs in the cupboards, but I need to keep some of my stuff where it is easily accessible.


Here's how I more or less kept my mess organized...until......















I went to JoAnn's yesterday to find a bit of fluff for some leaves, and when I went in, I discovered it was Clean Sweep Day. Almost everything was 50% off, and many things were 70% off. I didn't look too hard to see these fabric covered boxes, either. When I walked into the foyer, they were stacked sky high, and they just fell over into my path. 70% off! Did I say they were 70% off? And I also have an AQS discount card for an additional 10% off anything at JoAnn's including sale items! Whooee! I loaded up on them! Got every one them but the hamper style and the circular hatbox style. I stayed up last night until almost 1AM just to get them organized. I moved the old stainless steel shelving back into the pantry, and moved the baker's rack into the room.

Of course, I had all the help I needed, too!






















Here's all the boxes, labeled and ready to go!

I even had enough left over for my small book rack. I used them to organize my notecards, my adhesives and fusibles, and plastic bags, and the biggest one has my resource of 30's repro fabrics that I am using for several current projects.