A Tale of a Living Room Corner

Often I find myself drooling over freshly uploaded pictures of peoples' crafting rooms. I love looking at them, dreaming of the someday when I might get my own room to decorate and craft in and leave as messy as I want. I used to craft at the kitchen table. That had one major drawback. People always wanted to eat there, which meant cleaning up my mess and putting it all a way. Every. single. time. One day after drooling over internet crafting spaces I was sitting in my "formal" living room, when I got an idea. Why not use this space? No one used the formal living room because there was not a tv in there. No one really sat on the couches except for the cats. (And most of the time they were happier to scratch the couches instead of sit on them). So I thought, "Hey self, why not use that one tiny corner there. Its just one empty corner, no one will even notice." And so in the beginning it looked like this:

A tiny little gate leg table- which I could fold up when not in use. A little shelf on the wall. I took over the shelving unit on the side as well. A couple of things on the table top. No big deal. You hardly even notice such a thing.

When it was time to craft I would lift up the table side and spread out. I borrowed a dining room chair to sit on. Easy peasey. But then....

It started to look like this. All. The. Time. I started crafting on the floor because as you can see there was no room on the table! And I bet you can guess how often it got all cleaned up. You will also notice things started getting added to the wall. I needed more organizational space because frankly I had lots more stuff! Stuff started to sit on the floor and on the couch. Things were beginning to get out of control. Sooooo.....

I purchased this! Cute enough to be in the formal living room... look how pretty the top is. Nice neutral color. We had gotten a new wood floor and it went nicely with that as well. And the sides had cubbies... lots of extra room!
So you would think that by now I really wouldn't need anymore space... but you would be wrong because somehow I always needed one more little thing. Which brings us to today. The newest acquisition:

A ribbon shelf! A whole lovely shelf devoted to ribbon! Look room to grow as well! Built for me by my husband... and since he built it maybe he doesn't care that I am slowly taking over the entire living room.

And here is the final result... for now anyway...

New Crafty Table

I am so excited! I got a new craft table for my stuff! My crafting area is in my living room... boy do I wish I had a room of my own. I got this desk at pier one. Its counter top height, so I am going to be in the market for a stool soon. I love the color and the wood look to the top.
But the best part are these cubbies! Cubbies for all my goods! The shelves are adjustable and quite roomie! Lots of room for so much stuff!
And the other side. More cubbies, more stuff. Not sure if this is the final arrangement. My living room is a bit of a mess right now. We are in the process of looking for some new sofas or chairs. The old ones left on the last dump day. They were so mangled we couldnt even sell them.

What a Difference a Year Makes

Or maybe I should have titled this: Come Look at My Mess! The first picture is a picture of my scrapbook corner (circa Jan of 2008). Its in my living room... you can see it from the front door. I am sure this is a decorating don't, but we have no spare rooms and I was tired of having this all over my dining room table.

Now here we are, same corner, a year later. Wow have I added a lot of crap to this mess. You will also notice picking up my stuff has fallen by the wayside. I am rapidly out growing this corner. Unfortunately I have no where to move up too. I had thought we would be buying a new house by now, however the economy is in the toilet, I am layed off as of September, so there is no money to buy a new, bigger house with a nice scrapbook/craft room. Sigh. Just thought I would share.