Journey to an Inspiring Work Studio (Part 2)

My home office is in full on, unpacking and organizing mode! A daunting task, as you'll see from the pictures, but we're making some sort of progress. Don't forget to check out Part 1 of my journey to an inspiring workspace, found here.

So far, things aren't very inspiring, but here's where we stand:

Still a complete wreck; but boxes are starting to be emptied, which is a good sign.


I've invested in a couple of new furniture pieces for the room.  I carefully selected these, after many *many* hours of shopping around, for their quality construction, price, and functionality.  It's always been difficult for me to buy new furniture, especially considering that most of my business is hunting down and refinishing older, vintage pieces, but these guys were perfect for what I need, and saved me a lot of work.  They are also quality pieces;  I can see myself holding on to them for years to come, so it made the purchasing of *new* furniture a little bit easier to swallow...

• The Desk:A new desk was the first thing I really needed; something that could be used to save space, if the situation warranted it, yet still had a large work area.  I already have a small, fold-down sewing/craft table; so I was looking for something more where I could work on painting my larger signs, stenciling pillow covers, and cutting larger pieces of fabric.

I opted for this drafting desk from World Market (which, by the way, is on sale right now for only $139!!! A steal for a desk of this quality and size!!):

What I really liked for my purposes was the fact that it can fold up flat like a table, open at an angle (perfect for painting signs and smaller items), or fold down flat for storage, if needed.  And it's completely gorgeous!

• The Bookshelf:  I also needed (and wanted) a really large bookshelf for storage.  In my old workspace, I had everything scattered between different areas, so I need something that will hold most of my paint, fabrics, and tools all in one place.  Since I'd already found the desk that I loved at World Market, I ended up going with the Emerson Bookshelf from there as well. 

It is also on sale right now, and though still expensive, much less than it's counterparts from other places I looked, and it's spacious.  At 44" width and 71" height, I'm hoping that it's going to hold most of my materials.

I've already unpacked my paints, which all fit perfectly on one shelf!

• The Rug: The last big purchase (which wasn't that big ) was an area rug.  I needed something that was around 8'x10' to cover most of the carpet in the room and help protect it from spills and splatters (remember, we're in a rental condo, and I need my deposit back!).  Turns out, I have really expensive taste in area rugs :-/   Even my "go-to" store, Home Goods, ran at least $300 for rugs of that size.  Waaaay to expensive for me to justify all of the paint that it's bound to get on it.  So, I ended up ordering this rug from Walmart:

I love the colors and bold pattern, and at only $90 for an 8'x10', I figure I'll be okay if it gets a few stains.  Since I have so many darker wood grain furniture pieces in the room, I'm hoping that this will brighten things up a bit and start to bring the room together from a design aspect. Lately, I've been really feelin' yellow, which is odd because it used to be one of my least favorite colors...but I've decided that little pops of it around can really add a fresh and cheerful touch to a room! 

 By the time I check in next week, hopefully we'll be starting to see the "organization" part of my studio come together a little bit better! 

Journey to an Inspiring Work Studio (Part 1)

I've decided to do a blog series on my "journey" of setting up the new studio space/work room in our new condo! We got moved in last weekend, and  I'm on a mission to declutter, organize, and set up a workspace where I can actually feel inspired; rather than just a jumbled mess of paint, tools, and fabrics everywhere.

This first post is a little wordy, but I want you guys to really get a feel for what my space was like before and help hold me accountable for organizing my new space! It's going to be a process that may take a while but I hope you guys will stick with me and join in the redecorating and organizing fun!

To start off, I'm going to share a few (rather shameful) pictures of my work space at our old place. It's bad. Really bad. Here we go.....

This is the part that doesn't look super embarrassing: my sewing corner, which doubled as an office space.  Last fall when I added AlchemyHomeDecor to my plate, I was forced to take over our dining room.
 So, out went our only table, and in went my little desk and crate shelf for storing fabrics.  For the remainder of our time living in this condo, we were condemned to eating off of tv trays or outside on the balcony table if the weather was cooperating.  It's not shown in the picture, but I also had a secretary desk with my printer, silhouette Cameo, and various other accessories so I used this desk as my shipping/packing station as well.

"Sewing Corner" before aka our dining room 

 Here's where things get rough. Where did our dining table go, you might ask? Into our second bedroom, which really hasn't been a bedroom since 2012, but instead has been my workspace where I did all of the furniture restoration, painting, and wooden signs.
Yep. For the past 3 years, I've worked out of a tiny 8'x6' bedroom jumbled full of everything.  I do have a storage unit where I keep projects that are finished and waiting to sell, as well as pieces that are unfinished, but it still got very crowded!

Workroom before (left side)

That was one half of my workspace in it's normal state. Plastic everywhere (because remember I'm in a rental bedroom with carpet!), stencils hanging on the wall, and tools strewn about. The below picture shows the other half of the room. As you can see, there was barely any space left to move once you put a piece of furniture in there to paint.

Workroom before (right side)

It wasn't always this messy; but the past year and a half when I got really busy I just kind of let things go and pretty much surrendered to the mess, working around it.
Somewhere along the way in the process of cleaning out this space, packing up what I needed, and letting go of things that I didn't, I really began to realize how bad it had gotten.  Thus has begun my mission to organize and inspire!

Part of my difficulty comes with the fact that we were, and still are, renting  (the other bigger part of my problem simply comes from my un-organized nature).   I didn't take the proper measures to really protect the walls and carpet from paint splatters and to maximize the small space I was in.


Here's where we'll begin the new journey to an inspiring studio.  We've still moved into another rental condo, but it is a little bit bigger, and *hopefully* I'll be able to fit my entire workspace and office all in the second "bedroom".

What's different:

• The room is bigger than I had before, it's about 10' x 12' vs. the old 8' x 6' and very small dining room.
• A pretty sizable closet that I can utilize
• It has a much bigger window, providing tons of natural light!

I didn't get a picture of the space when it was actually empty, but this is what it looks like now.  Cluttered, of course. That's all going to change over the coming weeks!

I'll be updating again soon with lots of pictures along the way; but in the mean time, I'd love to know....What are some of best your tips and tricks for organizing and maximizing small spaces?!?

Spoonflower Designs by AlchemyHomeDecor

Did you know I also have a fabric shop on Spoonflower?! You can find it here: http://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/alchemyhomedecor

These are some of my newest designs, and there are more on the way!  I started designing these because I just couldn't find exactly what I wanted for our sofa, and love the result:-) 
 All of the colors in each pattern coordinate, so it is a fun way to mix and match patterns while keeping the same color palate. 

Large scale tribal feather- a fat quarter of this fabric works  for the front of one 18" x 18" pillow cover! 

Large scale Aztec style cross with birds and feathers- a fat quarter of this fabric works for the front of one 18" x 18" pillow cover!

Coordinating Aztec stripe pattern- One yard will make the front/back of two 14" x 18" pillow covers

Large scale Aztec pattern- I used this fabric for the backs of my feather and aztec cross pillows!