Real Estate

When one has a hobby, or multiple hobbies, space can be an issue. A large issue. Depending on available space, one can make progress on craft projects or fail to start, let alone finish a project. I enjoy various crafts – baking, crocheting, knitting, scrapbooking and journaling, card making, sewing and cross-stitching. I know some of these hobbies don’t require a lot of space. I can crochet or knit in a chair, on a bus, almost any place; however, I do need storage for my yarn, hooks and needles.

I do have my room for baking (although it desperately needs to be remodeled)!

We have a house that is big enough for our family and yet it seems as though there is little space for me to spread out, work and leave a craft project.

The big guy has a room, yes a room, in the basement to house his hobby items. It is a rather large area, with shelving, a large dresser, closet area and a door. I even outfitted it with camouflage curtains. He has had this room, his room, for years. And during these years, when I have wanted to sew (like those camo curtains) or work on projects, I had to cart everything to our kitchen table, usually later in the evening, work on the project, and pack everything back up and put it away. Just getting motivated to gather my items often stopped me.

The winds of change have blown through our house.

Did I mention I now have a craft room? I now have a craft room. Technically, it is not a dedicated room but it is space. My space. Space that I plan to use. I have been excited, almost giddy, because I have a room – space – where I can get items out, start projects and leave them – behind a closed door. No more digging out craft boxes, sewing machines, scrapbooking supplies (wait, I still have to do that) BUT I have a table – my work surface – that I can pile high with whatever I intend to work on and (this is the best part) I don’t have to pack it all up and put away. I CAN LEAVE IT OUT! Are you catching my excitement?

And how did I manage such real estate, you may want to know. I simply rearranged our guest bedroom over the holiday weekend. I moved furniture, mopped, dusted and got rid of items. The big guy helped me move an old kitchen table into the room and there it is…my craft room.

I plan to work on filling those scrapbooks that I have. I have prep work done as some of my recent photos are sorted. Oh to think we’ll have scrapbooks to browse, cards to send and perhaps I’ll get a large cross-stitch project finished within a year (I won’t tell you how many years it has been sitting in the closet – I just hope I can still read the legend).

I still have more organization and sorting to do but I am happy and making progress. So happy… sometimes I just sit in there, my craft room, and enjoy a cup of hot tea.

Can it get any better than this?