Crafting Spaces!

Now that I’m retired I’ve been focusing on creating crafting spaces in the house for the crafts that I love.  When I signed up for the Spin School I knew that I needed to create a spinning space that would encourage me to practice my spinning, and would keep everything I need neatly arranged.  The mini chaise is a piece that I picked up at an antique store when I was living in Center City Philadelphia.  Next to the chaise is an octagonal oak table that my husband and I picked up at a local antique store when we bought the old fashioned ice box that I use for my teas.  All the tools that I need are close at hand and the chaise has me at just the right height for spinning.  You can’t see it in this picture but the TV is to the right as this is our living room

Most of my knitting and crochet takes place on my day bed, which I use instead of a couch that is also where I lounge when we are watching TV.  I used to have an overloaded coffee table, but now have a much bigger, and much prettier table set up.

I made this table top when I was in graduate school at Notre Dame (in South Bend Indiana) and used it as my dining table (attached to a couple of book shelves), and when I moved to Philadelphia it became both my dining table and my crafting table, supported on book boxes (you can see a couple of my book boxes in the background of the first picture being used to support shelves, which is what happens when your collection exceeds the boxes and you’re no longer moving around).  You see, I have lots of books (and DVDs and CDs), and I used to have lots of book shelves.  I also moved around a lot in my younger days.  When I was in graduate school at Ball State (in Muncie Indiana, and just two hours away from my folks in Yellow Springs, Ohio) my Mom had the brilliant idea of turning my book shelves into book boxes that could be stacked to form shelves, but more importantly would serve as packing boxes for my books.  So that is what my Dad and I did - first we converted most of my book shelves into book boxes and then we made a bunch more.  They are all backed and have lids.  Anyway, back to my table top.  I needed something to support it, and all of my book boxes are occupied, so I bought some large milk crates (that come in bright colors) and used four to provide the base, and storage for my projects.

Even the trash can has a nice spot that keeps it out of the way and yet still accessible.

And there are spots for books that I want handy, as well as my iPad.  And that poor overloaded coffee table has also found a new home.

We had another coffee table that had served as a place to keep all of my spice jars (it was supposed to be a staging area as the real storage solution was created, but that never happened) and it just so happens that my old coffee table fit perfectly on top of that other coffee table, creating a nice spot for books that had been piling up (literally) on the floor and it also provides another napping spot for our cat Jezebel (cats need lots of good napping spots, preferably by windows).  The spices have a home in spice shelves that I bought and set up on more (you guessed it) boxes that I also bought to hold more books.